Barack Obama’s admission that his policies would “spread the wealth around” has ignited a nationwide discussion of how progressive the tax system should be and how it should be used to redistribute income among Americans. Obama has been very successful in bolstering the conventional wisdom that the U.S. tax system does not place a significant enough burden on wealthier households and places too much of a burden on the “middle class.”
But a new study on inequality by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris reveals that when it comes to household taxes (income taxes and employee social security contributions) the U.S. “has the most progressive tax system and collects the largest share of taxes from the richest 10% of the population.” [... T]he U.S. tax system is far more progressive-meaning pro-poor-than similar systems in countries most Americans identify with high taxes, such as France and Sweden.
Even after accounting for the fact that the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. have one of the highest shares of market income among OECD nations, our tax system is second only to Ireland in terms of its progressivity for households.
[... T]he U.S. [also] collects more household tax revenue from the top 10 percent of households than any other country and extracts the most from that income group relative to their share of the nation’s income.
Twicebefore, I asked: how much tax would “the rich” have to pay before it becomes fair?
I think Barack Obama and the Democrats owe us an answer. Preferably before election day.
29 October 2008 @ 8:53AM >>
I thought the job of the news media was to provide information, not suppress it. I guess I’m wrong:
Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.
Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.
Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?
Do we really have to ask?
So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?
[...]
Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?
Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.
Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi — indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were “best friends.” (And — small world! — it turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)
If Barack Obama is elected, he’ll probably be the president about which the American public knows the least. The media seems only interested in conveying feelings about Obama, not facts. As National Review’sMark Levin wrote:
Virtually all evidence of Obama’s past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media’s role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It’s as if the media use the Obama campaign’s talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn’t hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency.
Sure, we’ve heard about Obama incessantly, but what do we know?
We know he’s good-looking, super-cool, and he sports a spiffy halo. We know the celebrities in Hollywood love him, and European rock stars encourage Americans to vote for him on Saturday Night Live. We know that he will transcend race, even though he spent 20 years of Sundays in a racist church.
Aside from winning elections, we know that his greatest accomplishment to date has been to write two books about himself. We know he portrays himself as a moderate, but he hasn’t been on the political stage long enough to amass a record proving it. Even in his short time in the Senate, his votes have positioned himself further to the left than any other Senator.
True, the man has a voice that manages to soothe even as it commands respect. Unlike the raving lunatics and aging bomb-throwers he surrounds himself with, Barack Obama has the air of someone unflappably reasonable.
But who is Barack Obama really?
Given the lack of actual evidence backing up his supposed moderation—besides his take-my-word-for-it assurances—it is not only fair to judge Obama on the company he keeps, it’s pretty much the only way to judge him.
Perhaps that’s why news organizations like the Los Angeles Times wants us to know as little as possible about Obama’s associations. They know America would never elect a guy who keeps the company that Obama does.
27 October 2008 @ 8:24AM >>
An e-mail that’s making the rounds:
In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08” tie [...]
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
26 October 2008 @ 6:48PM >>
A local TV reporter in central Florida made television history the other day by questioning Saint Barack’s running mate in a manner usually reserved for Republican candidates.
And, of course, disciples of The One aren’t happy about it.
So the TV station has been cut off from all access to the Obama campaign for the duration of the election.
WFTV-Channel 9’s Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says it’s some of the best entertainment he’s seen recently. [...]
West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama’s comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn’t being a Marxist with the “spreading the wealth” comment.
“Are you joking?” said Biden, who is Obama’s running mate. “No,” West said.
West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America’s days as the world’s leading power were over.
“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,” Biden shot back.
Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.
“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.
McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was “a result of her husband’s experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.”
[...]
WFTV news director Bob Jordan said, “When you get a shot to ask these candidates, you want to make the most of it. They usually give you five minutes.”
Jordan said political campaigns in general pick and choose the stations they like. And stations often pose softball questions during the satellite interviews.
“Mr. Biden didn’t like the questions,” Jordan said. “We choose not to ask softball questions.”
Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don’t favor either candidate, and 13% say they don’t know which candidate most reporters support.
[...]
In recent presidential campaigns, voters repeatedly have said they thought journalists favored the Democratic candidate over the Republican. But this year’s margin is particularly wide. At this stage of the 2004 campaign, 50% of voters said most journalists wanted to see John Kerry win the election, while 22% said most journalists favored George Bush. In October 2000, 47% of voters said journalists wanted to see Al Gore win and 23% said most journalists wanted Bush to win. In 1996, 59% said journalists were pulling for Bill Clinton.
In the current campaign, Republicans, Democrats and independents all feel that the media wants to see Obama win the election. Republicans are almost unanimous in their opinion: 90% of GOP voters say most journalists are pulling for Obama. More than six-in-ten Democratic and independent voters (62% each) say the same.
For an industry that by all measures is in severe financial trouble, you’d think that reporters and editors would be a little more worried about the public’s perception of their output. But the media’s short-term desire to elect Barack Obama is apparently more important than their long-term credibility. That’s an exceedingly poor business decision.
[W]e have this extraordinarily complex global economy, which as everybody now realizes is very difficult to forecast in any considerable detail.
And, Mr. Chairman, I know — I agree with you in the fact that there were a lot of people who raised issues about problems emerging, but there are always a lot of people raising issues, and half the time they’re wrong. And the question is, what do you do?
I mean, you point out quite correctly that the Federal Reserve had as good an economic organization as exists, and I would say, in the world. If all those extraordinarily capable people were unable to foresee the development of this critical problem, which undoubtedly was the cause of the world problem with respect to mortgage-backed securities, I have to — I think we have to ask ourselves, why is that?
And the answer is that we’re not smart enough as people. We just cannot see events that far in advance. And unless we can, it’s very difficult to look back and say, why didn’t we catch something?
24 October 2008 >>
I’m excited to announce that the Documentary Channel will be showing my film Indoctrinate U several times next week as part of its “Controversy in America” series. Airtimes are:
Monday, October 27th: 09:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Tuesday, October 28th: Midnight - 01:30 AM (After midnight Monday)
Saturday, November 1st: 05:00 PM - 06:30 PM
Sunday, November 2nd: 02:00 AM - 03:30 AM
Tuesday, November 4th: 03:00 AM - 04:30 AM
(All times Eastern U.S.)
The Documentary Channel is available on satellite and many cable systems nationwide. Check your provider for channel information.
These times are subject to change. Visit the Documentary Channel’s website for an up-to-date schedule.
[New York Governor David] Paterson’s chief of staff now says he owed nearly $300,000 in back taxes, $100,000 more than was previously known - and his lawyer blamed the problem on “non-filer syndrome.”
Charles O’Byrne’s attorney, Richard Kestenbaum, mentioned the virtually unheard-of ailment at a briefing for reporters intended to quell the firestorm surrounding O’Byrne’s failure to file income-tax returns from 2001 to 2005.
O’Byrne, 49, a former Jesuit priest with close ties to the Kennedy family, has already blamed his neglect to file - first reported by The Post - on clinical depression.
Kestenbaum said yesterday O’Byrne also had “non-filer syndrome.”
“Many times, that syndrome causes them not to be able to file their tax returns,” he explained.
[...]
“Yes, it’s quite common,” one Manhattan accountant joked. “A hundred percent of my clients suffer from this syndrome, and it gets especially bad every year as April 15th approaches.”
21 October 2008 >>
The current market turmoil is not due to an insufficient amount of government meddling; quite the opposite, as the Washington Post notes in an editorial today:
[T]he problem with the U.S. economy, more than lack of regulation, has been government’s failure to control systemic risks that government itself helped to create. We are not witnessing a crisis of the free market but a crisis of distorted markets.
[...]
We’ll never know how this newly liberated financial sector might have performed on a playing field designed by Adam Smith. That’s because government interventions of all kinds, from the defense budget to farm supports, shaped the business environment. No subsidy would prove more fateful than the massive federal commitment to residential real estate — from the mortgage interest tax deduction to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates under Mr. Greenspan. Unregulated derivatives known as credit-default swaps did accentuate the boom in mortgage-based investments, by allowing investors to transfer risk rather than setting aside cash reserves. But government helped make mortgages a purportedly sure thing in the first place. Home prices seemed to stand on a solid floor built by Washington.
Since no government regulator can know in advance how new man-made economic rules will affect the financial choices people make, no regulator is ever capable of understanding the full set of potential pitfalls those regulations could create. Any wholesale changes to the functioning of our markets is therefore extremely risky.
In a political environment like this, new regulations are an easy sell. People will support any bill that puts a stop to Demonized Financial Activity X—as long as they think it’ll only cost other people. But when deciding whether to support a particular regulatory solution, remember that you’ll never get to hear a full accounting of its possible downsides. That’s because there’s no human or computer on the planet capable of accurately modeling the quintillions of variables that will also change as those regulatory changes ripple through the world’s economic oceans.
New regulations may seem obvious, but the damage they can cause rarely is, sometimes even in retrospect.
Since those with an ample supply of pessimism are already comparing our economy to that of the Great Depression—I’m not denying there’s the potential for pain in our future, but call me once the economy has contracted by 33% or when unemployment hits 25%—perhaps it’s useful to recall what happened in the 1930s when government bureaucrats in their infinitesimal wisdom decided that they knew better than markets:
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
[...]
“The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes,” Cole said. “Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened.”
Sadly, our country once again seems to be blindly groping its way towards socialism.
The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.
The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Obama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”
News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.
Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.
“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.
He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.
Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”
“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”
Hackett said he did not hear the remark.
Slavoski said Singleton was interviewed Wednesday and stood by his story but couldn’t give a description of the man because he didn’t see him he only heard him.
When contacted Wednesday afternoon, Singleton referred questions to Times-Tribune Metro Editor Jeff Sonderman. Sonderman said, “We stand by the story. The facts reported are true and that’s really all there is.”
Slavoski said the agents take such threats or comments seriously and immediately opened an investigation but after due diligence “as far as we’re concerned it’s closed unless someone comes forward.” He urged anyone with knowledge of the alleged incident to call him [...]. “We’ll run at all leads,” he said.
Thousands of people at a rally, and nobody got this on tape? Nobody except the reporter heard it?
We’re just supposed to take the reporter’s word for it, I guess.
15 October 2008 @ 9:05AM >>
You might not know it, what with Fahrenheit 9/11 being released a few weeks before the 2004 election, W. being released a few weeks before this election, and a whole slew of anti-Iraq War films over the last five years, but Hollywood all of a sudden does not want to appear partisan:
[Warner Brothers] has temporarily blocked the release of the DVD version of the 1987 film Hanoi Hilton, which will feature an interview with John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, about his imprisonment in Hoa Lo prison during the war.
The film, which gave a favourable portrayal of US prisoners, will now be released on November 11 - a week after the election.
Warner Brothers’s decision is likely to raise suggestions that it did not want to aid Mr McCain’s campaign by highlighting his wartime acts. The Republican candidate, who was a Navy pilot, was tortured during his imprisonment after being shot down over North Vietnam in October 1967.
Barry Meyer, the company’s chairman and chief executive, last month attended a fundraising dinner for Barack Obama, Mr McCain’s Democratic opponent.
[...]
Ronnee Sass, a spokesman for Warner Brothers, told the New York Times: “It’s just us trying to be cautious and not affect the election one way or the other.”
13 October 2008 @ 8:58AM >>
The latest media meme is that Republicans have become unhinged and dangerous at political rallies.
For some reason, the last 8 years of deranged anger towards President George W. Bush was never reported by the establishment media. Perhaps that’s because they felt it, too.
But it was an important story. I got my start in documentary filmmaking by capturingthe ugly, violentpassions of liberalactivists. The only reason the stories I covered were unique is that the media refused to cover them. Sure, plenty of political protests got coverage, but the extremist element at those protests were ignored by the media’s presentation.
And today, you’ll find plenty of hate directed at the campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But for some reason, the media has not constructed a narrative depicting Barack Obama’s supporters as angry and divisive. There certainly hasn’t been any criticism of Obama for encouraging confrontation by telling his supporters, “I want you to argue with [McCain backers] and get in their face.”
If I were a cynic, I might even conclude that the media has chosen sides in our election.
For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants?
That’s a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant’s dignity.
“Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously,” Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. “It’s one more constraint on doing genetic research.”
Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn’t “disturb the vital functions or lifestyle” of the plants. He eventually got the green light.
The rule, based on a constitutional amendment, came into being after the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to establish the meaning of flora’s dignity.
“We couldn’t start laughing and tell the government we’re not going to do anything about it,” says Markus Schefer, a member of the ethics panel and a professor of law at the University of Basel. “The constitution requires it.”
[...]
Several years ago, when Christof Sautter, a botanist at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology, failed to get permission to do a local field trial on transgenic wheat, he moved the experiment to the U.S. He’s too embarrassed to mention the new dignity rule to his American colleagues. “They’ll think Swiss people are crazy,” he says.
A gardener who fenced off his allotment with barbed wire after being targeted by thieves has been ordered to take it down - in case intruders scratch themselves.
Bill Malcolm erected the 3ft fence after thieves struck three times in just four months, stealing tools worth around £300 from his shed and ransacking his vegetable patch.
[...]
Mr Malcolm, who has grown potatoes, onions, beetroot and asparagus on two patches at the Round Hill allotments in Marlbrook, Worcestershire, for the past eight years, said: ‘It’s an absolutely ridiculous situation.
‘All I wanted was to protect my property but the wire had to go in case a thief scratched himself.
[...]
‘They shouldn’t be trespassing in the first place but the council apologised and said they didn’t want to be sued by a wounded thief.
‘I told them to let the thief sue me so at least that way I would know who was breaking into my allotment but everything I said fell on deaf ears. It seems as though they are so wrapped up in red tape, they are unable to help me.’
[...]
Mr Malcolm’s plight comes just weeks after Bristol council angered allotment holders by urging them not to lock their sheds in case burglars damaged them breaking in.
6 October 2008 @ 9:31AM >>
In a report that isn’t labeled an editorial, the Associated Press contends that criticizing Senator Barack Obama for his connections to unapologetic domestic terrorist Bill Ayers amounts to racism. (Or, in the exact words of AP, pointing out the ties between Obama and Ayers “carrie[s] a racially tinged subtext.”)
The article objects to the following statement from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:
“Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
The very first fundraiser of Barack Obama’s political career was held at the house of Ayers and his co-conspirator wife Bernardine Dorhn, two of the leaders of the Weather Underground. For years, the Weathermen terrorized Americans by bombing the U.S. Capital, the Pentagon, military recruiting stations and dozens of other locations, leading to several deaths. The Weathermen also killed a guard during an attempt to rob an armored car.
In addition to kicking off his political career at Ayers’s house, Obama was also tapped to lead an organization set up by Ayers to bring his goals for radicalizing education to Chicago public schools. Ayers, you see, is one of those folks who believes that, in order to be effective, indoctrination must start a lot sooner than college. And Obama worked to further the Ayers agenda for years.
But in the eyes of the establishment media, which has taken great pains to ignore the ties between Obama and Ayers, these years-long connections amount to nothing worth exploring. If one were to judge by the volume of coverage, Sarah Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy is much more relevant to the presidential election, it seems.
As for the argument that discussing Ayers and Obama’s work for his organization is somehow “racist,” well, the AP’s logic isn’t quite clear:
Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago.
Huh? So pointing out Obama’s ties to a white terrorist is somehow racist because we’re supposed to assume that all terrorists are “dark-skinned radical Muslims”? I thought it wasn’t politically correct to assume that. If anything, the AP should be congratulating Palin for pointing out that not all nutjobs who adhere to a murderous ideology are Muslim.
It doesn’t matter, though. Apparently, any criticism of Obama is inherently racist. We’re all just supposed to shut up and get out of the way so the media’s candidate can win the election and rule without opposition.
1 October 2008 @ 8:21AM >>
The current status of global warming:
[S]cientists involved in NASA’s Ulysses project reported that the intensity of the sun’s solar wind was at its lowest point since the beginning of the space age - one more indication that the sun, the biggest source of energy affecting the Earth, is getting quiet.
The weaker solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun’s magnetic field, but the cause is unknown. Sunspots, which normally fluctuate in 11-year cycles, are at a virtual standstill. In August, the sun created no visible spots. The last time that happened: June 1913.
The results of the Ulysses spacecraft’s mission, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory project scientist Ed Smith, show that “we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated.”
The consequences for Earth are enormous. The lack of increased activity could signal the start of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event that occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. It leads to extended periods of severe cooling such as what happened during the Little Ice Age.
It may already be happening. The four major agencies tracking Earth’s temperature, including NASA’s Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930.
Way back in the 1970s, scientists predicted the climate would cool. We should have listened.
