Ruth Marcus, financial writer, argues:
"The worst malefactors at AIG are gone. The new top management isn't taking bonuses.
"Driving away the very people who understand how to fix this complicated mess may make everyone...feel better, but it isn't particularly cost-effective.
"Remember, the contracts were negotiated long before the government put a cent into AIG. 'The plan was implemented because there was significant risk of departures among employees' at the company, AIG wrote in a paper explaining the plan....'retention incentives appeared to be in the best interest of all AIG stakeholders.'
"And federal legislation explicitly states that compensation limits for companies receiving bailout funds do not apply to pre-existing contracts.
"That was then, this is now is not a valid legal principle. 'We are a country of law,' economic adviser Lawrence Summers said [a week ago]. 'There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.'
You want to abrogate contracts? Bankruptcy is the legal mechanism designed precisely for the abrogation of contracts.
-IBD Editorials
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Universal Gov't Health Care, Shoddy Medicine for All
Investor's Business Daily, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, reports:
"Establishing universal government health care might cost as much as $1.5 trillion, according to one new estimate. And what'll we get? As usual, the sorry British system provides another glimpse.
"[In] a National Health services hospital in Stafford...thirsty patients drink from flower wases, according to London's daily Mail, and others are 'left in soiled linen on filthy wards.' ...There is documented evidence of poor care and filthy conditions at other NHS facilities.
"When the government runs [universal health care]...the care will be rotten, rationed and so free that it will impoverish the country."
Lawrence Kudlow, commentator, said it best regarding the AIG bungled government take-over: "It...shows, once again, why the government shouldn't run anything, because it cannot run anything.
"Establishing universal government health care might cost as much as $1.5 trillion, according to one new estimate. And what'll we get? As usual, the sorry British system provides another glimpse.
"[In] a National Health services hospital in Stafford...thirsty patients drink from flower wases, according to London's daily Mail, and others are 'left in soiled linen on filthy wards.' ...There is documented evidence of poor care and filthy conditions at other NHS facilities.
"When the government runs [universal health care]...the care will be rotten, rationed and so free that it will impoverish the country."
Lawrence Kudlow, commentator, said it best regarding the AIG bungled government take-over: "It...shows, once again, why the government shouldn't run anything, because it cannot run anything.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Hurray for David Mamet, Producer of CBS's The Unit!
David Mamet recently rejected his Leftist bias against corporations and the military. He said he'd been trained by his left-wing education and the entertainment industry to hate these two pariahs of "democracy."
But he recently has seen that corporations have given him and Western society iPods, Nikes, cell phones, cars, heat in homes, abundance of food, medicines and life-saving medical procedures - all the things that have made his life good.
And the U.S. Military, far from being the alleged baby-killers of John Kerry, these extraordinary young men and women are made up of America's best, serving the countries they've liberated, at the expense of their lives. So says David Mamet.
Thus convinced of the virtue of these soldiers, Mr. Mamet now produces a must-see TV series on a Delta Force Unit and their wives. Citizen soldiers with families, living among us! A Spartan 300 who love their wives and children intensely.
Protecting us and our children!
But he recently has seen that corporations have given him and Western society iPods, Nikes, cell phones, cars, heat in homes, abundance of food, medicines and life-saving medical procedures - all the things that have made his life good.
And the U.S. Military, far from being the alleged baby-killers of John Kerry, these extraordinary young men and women are made up of America's best, serving the countries they've liberated, at the expense of their lives. So says David Mamet.
Thus convinced of the virtue of these soldiers, Mr. Mamet now produces a must-see TV series on a Delta Force Unit and their wives. Citizen soldiers with families, living among us! A Spartan 300 who love their wives and children intensely.
Protecting us and our children!
Three Cheers for CBS's The Unit!
Sunday's (March 15) episode of The Unit drives home the readiness of the U.S. Military to meet internal threats, and the need of citizens to be ready for internal attacks on the homeland.
The episode features a Delta Force Unit mixed in with the population and positioned to respond to a sudden chlorine gas attack on a section of town, using the water system.
As members of the Unit and their wives at their jobs, and in their apartment buildings move to tape up the doors and windows, taking life saving steps to preserve the populace, they encounter resistant uninformed citizens: "How come you know all this? Are you some kind of survivalist nut-case?" This character respresents the naive realist, who knows-it-all and places others in danger with his ignorance.
Indeed, one man who is going to make up his mind on his own, leaves the safety of the airtight apartment, and winds up dead, listening to such rubbish.
A mother safe with her children in a refrigeration truck pleads with a member of the Unit, who just saved her life: "Why are they doing this? What did we do to them? My children never did anything to them!"
We need the scales to fall from our eyes. See the dangers around us. Live aware!
The episode features a Delta Force Unit mixed in with the population and positioned to respond to a sudden chlorine gas attack on a section of town, using the water system.
As members of the Unit and their wives at their jobs, and in their apartment buildings move to tape up the doors and windows, taking life saving steps to preserve the populace, they encounter resistant uninformed citizens: "How come you know all this? Are you some kind of survivalist nut-case?" This character respresents the naive realist, who knows-it-all and places others in danger with his ignorance.
Indeed, one man who is going to make up his mind on his own, leaves the safety of the airtight apartment, and winds up dead, listening to such rubbish.
A mother safe with her children in a refrigeration truck pleads with a member of the Unit, who just saved her life: "Why are they doing this? What did we do to them? My children never did anything to them!"
We need the scales to fall from our eyes. See the dangers around us. Live aware!
TV's Cold Case Promotes Leftist Agenda - Turn It Off
by Cinnamon Stillwell
One of the preachiest of the preachy cop shows has to be "Cold Case" on CBS. The show is consumed with such liberal preoccupations as anti-abortion activism, disturbed Vietnam veterans, transgender hero(ines), interracial lesbian love affairs, draft dodgers, McCarthyism and demonizing Christians.
An episode one season betrayed the latter fixation perfectly by making Mormons the targets of ridicule. The episode revolved around Roy, a Mormon serial killer who murders his victims because "God tells him to." At the same time, Roy attends a screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" where he strips down to his underwear on stage -- the implication being that Mormons are sexually repressed lunatics. But it's all in a day's work for the writers of "Cold Case."
Cinnamon Stillwell is a San Francisco writer. She can be reached at cinnamonstillwell@yahoo.com
One of the preachiest of the preachy cop shows has to be "Cold Case" on CBS. The show is consumed with such liberal preoccupations as anti-abortion activism, disturbed Vietnam veterans, transgender hero(ines), interracial lesbian love affairs, draft dodgers, McCarthyism and demonizing Christians.
An episode one season betrayed the latter fixation perfectly by making Mormons the targets of ridicule. The episode revolved around Roy, a Mormon serial killer who murders his victims because "God tells him to." At the same time, Roy attends a screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" where he strips down to his underwear on stage -- the implication being that Mormons are sexually repressed lunatics. But it's all in a day's work for the writers of "Cold Case."
Cinnamon Stillwell is a San Francisco writer. She can be reached at cinnamonstillwell@yahoo.com
Friday, March 6, 2009
Mr. Obama, We Know Lincoln, And You are No Lincoln
Two writers, Andrew Ferguson and Rob Long, evaluate Obama's speech in an interview on Uncommon Knowledge for The National Review. Drama versus substance.
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=N2FiNjg0NDk1NmY2ZmM0YzFjYTM4ODM4OTMxM2FmOGY=
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=N2FiNjg0NDk1NmY2ZmM0YzFjYTM4ODM4OTMxM2FmOGY=
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Economist Thomas Sowell on Redistribution of Wealth
In his book The Vision of the Anointed Mr. Sowell argues (p. 211):
"To say that 'wealth is unfairly distributed in America,' as Ronald Dworkin does, is grossly misleading when most wealth in the United States is not distributed at all. People create it, earn it, save it, and spend it."
The President, misguided and misleading, deliberately hid this agenda from many voters in the middle.
Did you know you were voting for Socialism?
Continues Sowell: "If one believes that income and wealth should not originate as they do now, but should be distributed as largess from some central point, then that argument should be made openly, plainly and honestly."
It was not.
"But to talk as if we currently have a certain distribution result A which should be changed to distribution result B is to misstate the issue and disguise a radical institutional change as a simple adjustment of preferences."
Obama, a socialist, disguised his radical institutional changes during the election and is now pursuing his radical agenda.
"To say that 'wealth is unfairly distributed in America,' as Ronald Dworkin does, is grossly misleading when most wealth in the United States is not distributed at all. People create it, earn it, save it, and spend it."
The President, misguided and misleading, deliberately hid this agenda from many voters in the middle.
Did you know you were voting for Socialism?
Continues Sowell: "If one believes that income and wealth should not originate as they do now, but should be distributed as largess from some central point, then that argument should be made openly, plainly and honestly."
It was not.
"But to talk as if we currently have a certain distribution result A which should be changed to distribution result B is to misstate the issue and disguise a radical institutional change as a simple adjustment of preferences."
Obama, a socialist, disguised his radical institutional changes during the election and is now pursuing his radical agenda.
Don't Forcibly Redistribute My Wealth, I'll do it of my own Free Will and Choice
Vice-President Joseph Biden's 2006 tax returns showed that he made very close to $150,000 and gave only $315 in charitable contributions.
In 2007, he made roughly $350,000 and gave only close to $375 in charitable giving - this according to Laura Ingraham, conservative radio commentator.
Now, this blogger, an educator, who makes 1/7 of Joe Biden's 2007 income gave more than $8,000 in charitable contributions.
A voluntary redistribution of my own wealth!
Americans, contrary to the Michael Douglas character in the film Greed, gave $60 billion dollars of their own money in charitable giving during the so-called "Decade of Greed."
That's quite a bit of voluntary redistribution of personal wealth!
Biden's free with other people's money. So is Barak Obama. They want to force you to "share the wealth!"
Let me freely redistribute my own wealth!
Ah, but I might not redistibute it to the earmark destinations these elitist "anointed" ones believe in!
There's the rub.
In 2007, he made roughly $350,000 and gave only close to $375 in charitable giving - this according to Laura Ingraham, conservative radio commentator.
Now, this blogger, an educator, who makes 1/7 of Joe Biden's 2007 income gave more than $8,000 in charitable contributions.
A voluntary redistribution of my own wealth!
Americans, contrary to the Michael Douglas character in the film Greed, gave $60 billion dollars of their own money in charitable giving during the so-called "Decade of Greed."
That's quite a bit of voluntary redistribution of personal wealth!
Biden's free with other people's money. So is Barak Obama. They want to force you to "share the wealth!"
Let me freely redistribute my own wealth!
Ah, but I might not redistibute it to the earmark destinations these elitist "anointed" ones believe in!
There's the rub.
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