Pay Attention to Europe

Every couple of weeks, we mention the European mess.  Here, Pethokoukis quotes Barclay's.

Our baseline forecast assumes that policymakers will prevent the turmoil in Europe from leading to a full-blown financial crisis similar to 2008 and that US policymakers will not impose excessive fiscal tightening starting in 2012. If, by contrast, either of these risks is realized, the potential for another recession will increase substantially.

...in a recession scenario, house prices, as measured by the CoreLogic headline index, could decline another 7% in 2012 . … The scenario posits declining real GDP for four consecutive quarters, with Q2 12 having the deepest decline at 6% (q/q saar)

...Real disposable personal income also declines for four consecutive quarters, albeit with a one-quarter lag relative to the decline in GDP, and the unemployment rate moves  persistently higher, peaking at 12.1% by the end of our forecast horizon.

Other than that, things will be just fine and dandy!

Krueger's Gone

Drove east on Bluemound today, got near 124th St., and dropped jaw.

Krueger Lithograph is gone, save for a small section which was front/center of the building.

Yah, I know it was called "Quebbecor" (or something like that) in the last several years; that Krueger sold the biz a long time ago, and that the plant's been dead meat for quite some time.

So it'll be like another Allis-Chalmers site.  One of the biggest entities in its marketplace, a dominant player across the US and in the world..... to a site for a retail store.

The TEA Party's List

FreedomWorks did a crowd-source and came up with a list of cuts totaling $9 trillion over 10 years.

Here's the list:

1.    Repeal Obamacare
2.    Reduce duplicative purchases of Pentagon supplies
3.    Eliminate the Department of Education
4.    Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
5.    Reduce discretionary spending to 2008 level
6.    Block grant Medicaid
7.    End ethanol tax credits
8.    Sell needless federal buildings
9.    Eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development
10.  Reduce Medicare teaching subsidies

It's a start.

Some Sewage Is More Expensive Than Other Sewage

All you really have to know is contained here:

Citing the city's history of diverting 6.4 million gallons of untreated sewage and storm water into local waterways during rain events, the EPA has ordered the city to make improvements by 2016 or face penalties.

Six point four million gallons.

Or, as MMSD would put it, "A drop in the bucket."

MMSD's bucket is Lake Michigan.

Biden's No Longer Funny

Seems that Joe Biden's gone off the deep end. 

He used to be the comic relief of the Obozo Admin.  Now he's just an unhinged hack.

Joe Biden pumps out witless statements and incredible gaffes at a pace that Dan Quayle could only achieve with a combination of amphetamines, tequila, and a Joy Behar marathon.  ...Even when Biden was caught referring to Tea Party activists as “terrorists” - and then caught lying about it - the media wasn’t interested in discussing the mindset of desperation and paranoia...

But Joe's good for pushing 'little people' around.  He verbally attacked a Culver's employee in Milwaukee, and now goes postal on a reporter over his "rape" rant.

Biden trotted out this foolishness again at a University of Pennsylvania speech on Tuesday… and retooled it to the brutally stupid wish that opponents of Obama’s “jobs” bill could be raped, so they would understand the consequences of defying the President’s demands.

When questioned on his asinine and suggestive assertions:

Vice President Joe Biden now says he didn’t make a reference to rape, and got testy with HUMAN EVENTS when we asked if he would like to retract his comments that the number of sexual assaults would increase if Republicans don’t sign on to Barack Obama’s latest “jobs” proposal.
 
“I didn’t use, no no no…Let’s get it straight, guy. Don’t screw around with me,” Biden lashed out at HUMAN EVENTS.  Then Biden confirmed that he indeed did talk about rape in terms of the President’s spending measure. “Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise,” if the Democrats agenda isn’t passed, he added.

Too bad.  It was more fun when he was just a joke.

Big Sis: Illegals Will Get Work Permits

Well, why not?  After all, they're cheap.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that under the administration’s policy of exercising “prosecutorial discretion” in the enforcement of the immigration laws, her department is currently authorizing some illegal aliens to work in the United States.

Napolitano then twisted--sorta like lying--about the Simpson-Mazzoli Act's provisions.  Too bad that CNS News knows the act's provisions.

The act applied to illegal aliens who requested a change of status within 18 months of the law's passage and who had come into the United States prior to Jan. 1, 1982, and had resided in America since that time.

That can't be too many people. And "prosecutorial discretion" is an Obozo Admin policy; it doesn't date back to Reagan.

The Alternative to Biden's "Get Raped" Crap

The .357 Magnum revolver. 

Joe Biden says we gotta spend $35Bn or women will get raped.

For about $600.00 plus ammo, one of these, carried discreetly, will also prevent rape.  With skilful application, it will prevent any future rapes from the perp......forever.

UW-GB, An Example of Ethical Behavior. /Irony

Well, well.  Seems that UW-GB management overflows with corruption.

A second administrator from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay rejoined the university after retiring last spring, and is now collecting a six-figure salary along with a $44,000 pension...

Now get this:  The bozo/corruptocrat here can read English (we assume)--after all, he's a "highly educated" individual, right?

the [Green Bay Press-Gazette] quoted Sewall as saying, “There is no evidence I did not follow state policy. I retired because I thought my benefits would be at risk. No one was sure what was going to happen under the governor’s budget-repair bill.”

...unless you actually read the bill, Ph.D. Sewall.

Waupun has a few rooms available for you and Captain Corrupt up there.

Reid to Spend on Gummint Jobs. Doh.

Seems that the Senate (D) party wants to dump $35Bn into Gummint jobs.

Ol' Harry makes the claim that Gummint jobs done been hard-hit in the Great Recession.

Well, not really.

According to an analysis by the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, since the beginning of the recent recession (Dec. 2007), there have been 6,257,000 private sector job losses (a 5.41% decline) and 392,000 total government (federal + state + local) job losses (a 1.75% decline).

Harry has a constituency:  Jabba the Hutt.

NLRB: Thugs for the SEIU (And Others)

So now, the NLRB has become the 'enforcer' for SEIU and other unions.

Still think that "statism" stuff was just over-reaction?

In the recent Lamons Gasket case, the NLRB voted 3-1 to overturn a precedent that allowed workers like me to demand a secret ballot unionization election following a card check campaign.

I don't know why the NLRB decided to reverse precedent and end these safety-valve elections. But I do know the decision has had a serious impact on workers across the country.

Several pending union decertification elections were called off before employees had a chance to vote. Other elections that had already taken place were abruptly nullified -- the NLRB didn't even bother to count the ballots.

There's a solution, beginning with BUY MORE AMMO.

"Me-ism": Blame Kant

Now and then it's worth taking a look at cause and effect.

...Kant himself was, of course, a very austere man; he would have been absolutely horrified at what liberals and libertarians now defend in the name of “autonomy.” Accordingly, the original sin of Kantianism is not abortion, fornication, dope smoking or the like. It is, rather, the codification of modern man’s blasphemous self-obsession, the raising of “It’s all about me” to a moral first principle. And the blasphemy is only heightened, not lessened, if the only reason the blasphemer refrains from the sins in question is that he thinks them incompatible with his pathological self-regard.

I went there because of this interesting statement:

...Tollefsen and I do indeed deeply disagree over matters of general political philosophy.  I regard the state as a natural institution rather than as something “constituted” by “the wills of the community’s members.” (Tollefsen here makes what many of us traditional natural law moralists regard as an unnecessary and unwise accommodation to Kantian liberal orthodoxy.

That 'wills of the community's members.....' claptrap is usually iterated by the wannabee dictator of such a State.

What Did the US Do in Afghanistan?

GWB's boyzzz left a stinker.

...in 2004 those of us who prize freedom of religion had reason to be concerned. We were hoping that since America had overthrown the Taliban and was helping to draft the new Afghani constitution that it would be similar to the constitution of Turkey—or at least be distinguishable from the constitution of Iran. What was created, with the help of the U.S. government, was an Islamic Republic, a state in which “no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam.”

So, with all the propaganda and proselytizing about "helping democracy" from Rice, Rummy, et. al., what our adventure created was another Taliban.

Nice work.

State Tax Income, FY 2011

Good news, I suppose.

Individual income tax revenues are up $611 million over FY2010.

Sales/Use tax up $200 million over '10.

Corporate Income tax up $18 million over '10.

"Sin taxes" were off by $37 million, however--and cigarette taxes were off by $40 million, meaning that beer/wine taxes were up.

No surprise there; it's not very difficult to find cigarettes without paying the Wisconsin (or Federal) tax.

Attacking "9-9-9": There's a Reason for That

It's a lot of fun to watch Herman Cain just roll along and make "errors."

Why?  Because that tells you that Herman Cain is not part of the Elite Establishment.  And of course, when he has a proposal (9-9-9) which would dis-enfranchise 100,000 tax-lawyers and another 500,000 CPAs--not to mention several thousand Elite-Club-Member lobbyists--the chorus of screeching gets very loud, indeed.  It's an "error," they say.

When he opines that 'perhaps' he'd do some horse-trading with Gitmo terrorists, several thousand "national security"/Permanent War" types see job-losses, along with the possibility that--as Israel decided--there may be some battles not worth fighting, so long as you win the war.  That means their influence will be diminished.

Sacre bleu!!  It's an "error."

Cain is looking at the Federal Jabba-the-Hutt just like most citizens do.

It drives the camp-followers crazy.  And that is NOT "an error."  It's a warning to the camp-follower, crony capitalist, tit-sucking bunch.

They're scared of Herman.

Bank of America Just Hit You Up, Hard

It's a bit complex, but here's the deal:

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation… --Naked Capitalism quoting Bloomberg

IOW, BofA moved its high-risk assets from Merrill Lynch into the bank's portfolio--meaning that if BofA goes *poof* the FDIC (that's you, sucka!!) will take the hit on the CDS.

How did that happen?  Under the old scenario, where Merrill Lynch held the CDS,:

The operating units, most importantly, the banks, would not be affected and could be spun out to a new entity or sold. Shareholders would be wiped out and holding company creditors (most important, bondholders) would take a hit by having their debt haircut and partly converted to equity. This changes the picture completely. This move reflects either criminal incompetence or abject corruption by the Fed. Even though I’ve expressed my doubts as to whether Dodd Frank resolutions will work, dumping derivatives into depositaries pretty much guarantees a Dodd Frank resolution will fail. Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs.

The Fed (Bernanke & Co.) like this.  FDIC is apoplectic.

And you can bet that some Clark Clifford Pubbies (see below) are just fine with this, too.

The Pubbies: Not 'Citizen-Lawmakers'

The nub of it:

It would seem obvious that a party that repeatedly states as its central belief the idea of limited government has somehow managed to produce an "elite" that in fact believes nothing of the kind.

IOW, by definition, the "elite" are perma-Gummint kinda guys (and gals.)  It's what Ron Johnson is NOT.

That observation comes in an article by Jeffrey Lord musing on the Republicans who spoke with the NYT in an article published last weekend.  Our author refers to them as "Clark Clifford Republicans."

"Clark Clifford Republicans" defined as those who really don't believe in the Reagan/Coolidge view -- the conservative view and once upon a time the Republican view -- of the world at all. Even if they give good lip service to the idea in public, it is clear from this piece that in the quiet corners of this or that Washington bistro they are muttering their equivalent derogations for Tea Partiers that match in some fashion Clifford's "amiable dunce" derisive. Although, it appears, they have dropped the "amiable."

Well they should drop 'amiable,' because the TEA Party folks will not remain 'amiable' for long.

Just try us.


There is something decidedly off-kilter when the party elite for a party whose core premise is limited government is itself addicted to Big Government. So addicted that the very idea of eliminating program X (much less Department Y) is viewed with alarm as an expression of Outside the Mainstreamness or, more viscerally, "paranoia." Creating in turn the impression to a growing number of alarmed Americans that the Party of Reagan has become the Party of Jabba the Hutt...

That accounts for the not-very-subtle twisting of the TEA Party into 'crypto-Paulistas.'  The Elite would label you as a 'nut'.


Lord is far more polite than he needs be:


The circle game goes round and round, with the money earned from protecting Big Government used for contributions to GOP candidate A, B, or C. To make certain the access to Elected GOP Official A, B, or C is thus greased and that when push comes to shove, no serious damage has been done to Big Government.

So let's go back to the Ron Paul ideas.


Nuke the following:

• Department of Education
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Energy
• Department of the Interior
• Department of Housing and Urban Development

Ron Paul may have some strange ideas--but THOSE are not; they're only a beginning.

Senate "Conservatives"? Cornyn, Ensign, Off the Reservation

Earlier we mentioned that the Wisconsin Legislature is enshrining ObamaCare here--while the Wisconsin AG fights to have ObamaCare tossed at SCOTUS.

Now it turns out that US Senate "conservatives" are also perfectly happy with Big Gummint inanities.

On the upside, the bill would repeal the Obama administration’s two most aggressive assaults on the Constitution — Obamacare and Dodd-Frank — and “require congressional approval by joint resolution of any federal rule that would cost the economy $100 million or more.” If they left it at that, Senate Republicans would be making significant improvements to the nation’s economic climate while vindicating important constitutional limitations on the national government’s power.

Unfortunately, the bill would also enact S.197, “The Medical Care Access Protection Act.” Among other things, S.197 sets a statute of limitations for claims, caps damages and creates standards for expert witnesses. These may sound like great ideas, but they are not within the constitutional powers granted to the federal government for the very same reasons Obamacare is not.

Apparently the Senators want to establish national standards for trial-lawyering, which would (perhaps) eliminate the Mississippi/Louisiana 'Get Rich Here' damages trials.

So to do it, the "conservatives" just take a sledge to the Constitution?

HT:  Monty

What's the Rush on AB210?

Brian Sikma raises a good question:  what's the rush on AB210, which would enshrine ObamaCare in Wisconsin law?

Are our Leggies telling us that the State of Wisconsin cannot do better than ObamaCare?

Inflation? Pay Attention to the PPI

Ticker loves to read these reports.

Oops.  0.8?!  That's a roughly ten percent annualized rate of increase! 

"Crude goods" price increases are >20% every month since April with only one exception.

The Uganda Mission: FAIL

Optimistic Conservative (a very difficult position to maintain, by the way) agrees with us.

The most fundamental [objection], in my view, is that there is no real operational mission for the US advisers, advisers and trainers. The State Department policy statement on the deployment is as non-specific as it’s possible to be while still using English nouns and adjectives. But it’s not just the vagueness of the mission; it’s the fact that, based on a military analysis of the situation, there isn’t one.

US "advisers" were also in Viet Nam in the late 1950's, remember?

By the way, that canard about "Congressional authorization" is crap.  Feingold--who voted for the bill in question--specifically denied that it authorized military involvement.