SOME ECONOMIC ISSUES

Farm aid getting hit from left and right: "Among the groups working to convince Congress to rein in farm subsidies are the liberal Environmental Working Group and the conservative Club for Growth. Former Club for Growth President Stephen Moore told the Chicago Tribune for a January 8 article, 'Farm subsidies are one of the most expensive forms of corporate welfare in the federal budget. Most Americans believe it goes to the small family farmer, but the truth is that the lion's share goes to large agribusiness.' Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, told the Tribune, 'If you lay off a factory worker in Chicago because you outsource the job, we give them $10,000 and a hug and a certificate for retraining. What we give these guys [farmers] is $150,000 for cotton year after year that keeps them in the game internationally.'"

The latest excuse to slug the consumer "The US multinational establishment, having successfully championed free-trade orthodoxy for decades, may now be flirting with protectionist heresy--a stiff tariff against China to stanch America's hemorrhaging trade deficits. Fred Bergsten, the multinationals' leading economic authority, warns that the United States is in "big trouble," taking on foreign debt beyond anything any industrial nation has experienced and comparable to Mexico and Thailand just before they crashed in the 1990s. Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, is lobbying elite circles to demand decisive action by the Bush Administration--an "import surcharge" as high as 50 percent on all Chinese imports--to avert financial meltdown".

Leftist hatred of economic success in evidence: "As Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., tries to plant dozens of new Supercenters in California, lawyers aligned with opposition groups the company calls fronts for labor unions and competitors are using California's tough environmental laws to stall the nation's largest retailer. From rural Northern California to the crowded south, a handful of lawyers have sued more than 30 cities that approved the 200,000-square-foot combination grocery and department stores, claiming that local officials hungry for sales taxes have miscalculated their environmental consequences.... In many cases, these suits have been filed on behalf of obscure, often-secretive, community groups that have few known members. Some of them have been backed by the labor unions leading an anti-Wal-Mart fight in California, while others have few apparent sources of money. They're delaying the opening of some stores by months or years and slowing Wal-Mart's plan to build up to 40 new Supercenters ... The suits haven't stopped the company from opening any stores, said Peter Kanelos, a company spokesman. "All they've done is delay the stores."

********************************

ELSEWHERE

From PoliPundit: "The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has released a set of proposed �rules� for political speech on the Internet. These rules specify exactly what speech is, and isn�t, allowed on the Internet. I�m not kidding. They really do want to regulate political speech on the Internet. Bloggers, like yours truly, could be fined and punished for writing about a political candidate, if the FEC decides that we violated some aspect of their byzantine �rules.�... Fortunately, there is something you can do. The FEC is asking for your comments on the proposed �rules.�"

Another twisted social worker: "A county mental health counselor appears to have been with a 16-year- old Oakland girl when the teenager allegedly slashed the throat of a 75-year- old woman near the Berkeley Rose Garden last week, county officials said Friday. Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson said the female employee, who was placed on leave pending several investigations, apparently had not called police to report the March 16 attack. "That would be the first action a normal person would take," Carson said Friday. "The fact is that we are under the impression that she did not call the Police Department." The employee, who is about 30 years old, was a counselor in the guidance center at Juvenile Hall, where the suspect is currently in custody"

A hidden epidemic: "There is a 'hidden epidemic' in this country, and it amazes me that people who can do something about it either don't recognize it, refuse to recognize it, or are part of the cause of it. This epidemic is children 's abuse, sex abuse, and death WHILE IN THE CARE OF THE CHILD PROTECTORS. These are the people who are supposed to be 'protecting' our children. They take our children from us as a first option and on the flimsiest of excuses, put them in foster care, there to die or be sexually or physically abused much more often than they ever are at home. ... Have you heard anything about this 'epidemic' in the news? No. And you won't, because these 'child protectors' are very good at hiding the truth from the public or 'poo-pooing' it when it does come out. They have a permanent legal 'gag order' on all facts concerning their operations."

NYC slides into mass illiteracy: "City officials recalled preparation material for math tests that had been sent to teachers after discovering they were filled with math and spelling mistakes. The materials were designed for math students in grades 3 through 7, and had been sent to math coaches and local instructional superintendents. The errors were found late Wednesday before the guide reached classrooms. Several answers in the guide were wrong. There were also sloppy diagrams and improper notation of exponents. There were at least 18 errors in the guide, and grammar and spelling issues proved just as problematic as the math. For example, the word "fourth" was misspelled on the cover of the 4th-grade manual. School officials blamed the mistakes on an ineffective fact-checker".

Book by Thomas Sowell: Black Rednecks and White Liberals. "An essay titled "The Real History of Slavery" presents a jolting re-examination of that tragic institution and the narrow and distorted way it is too often seen today. The reasons for the venomous hatred of Jews, and of other groups like them in countries around the world, are explored in an essay that asks, "Are Jews Generic?" Misconceptions of German history in general, and of the Nazi era in particular, are also re-examined. So too are the inspiring achievements and painful tragedies of black education in the United States".

The failed faith: "Like Communism, liberalism was put into practice. Better for the idealists if it had remained a dream. But as anyone who has lived within a mile of a government-housing project will know, real-life liberalism is a menacing thing -- anti-utopia. Neighborhoods menaced by young men without fathers, their mothers financed by the state, should by now have disillusioned even the most progressive minded. So should inner-city state schools, where parents play little or no role, and perhaps don't even know where the school is. Although its adherents don't like to discuss the point, the liberal faith has much in common with Communism... Liberalism and Communism both regarded egalitarianism as an ideal and both were godless; Communism openly so, liberalism more obscurely. Democracy admittedly distinguished between them, but the liberal admiration for an ideological judiciary shows that they, too, would like nothing more than a government that is free to impose its will by fiat (provided it is run by the right people).".

There is a choice posting on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS about Gore Vidal.

My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notifies a hiatus.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

**************************

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************