Harvard called and they want their degree returned

Obama is a dunce…

But last week, we had a separate vote on a part of the jobs bill that would put 400,000 teachers, firefighters and police officers back on the job, paid for by asking people who make more than $1 million to pay one-half of 1 percent in additional taxes. For somebody making $1.1 million a year, that’s an extra $500. Five hundred bucks. And with that, we could have saved 400,000 jobs.

Most people making more than $1 million, if you talk to them, they’ll say, I’m willing to pay $500 extra to help the county. They’re patriots. They believe we’re all in this thing together. But all the Republicans in the Senate said no. (Emphasis added).

This from the brilliant man who attended Harvard Law, Columbia University and Occidental College.

More on Obama’s math skills:

But even if the president meant to say $5,500, his math continues to pose some challenges. According to the IRS, a total of 235,413 taxpayers earned more than $1 million last year. If each “was willing to pay $[5,]500 extra to help the country,” that would generate only $1.3 billion in revenue — approximately what the federal government spends every three hours. Wouldn’t it be just as patriotic for President Obama to turn off the federal spigot for three hours and dedicate the savings to funding those 400,000 jobs?

What do you expect from the guy who visited all 57 states.

Sunday Morning Links: The Vintage Car Wreck Edition

Found these great pictures at How to be a Retronaut. Be sure to check out the rest.

CS: Smoke and Mirrors Bus Tour
WyBlog: Lech Walesa says “Nie” to Occupy Wall Street
SJ: I’m not the same conservative I was five years ago
Cof: Has the Whole World Gone Mad?
theCL: Mainstream Politics Killed the American Dream

Bunker: Louisiana says no cash transaction for 2nd hand goods
LAS: Jack Wiley Dithers reports on Liberty at Stake’s new online store
WWTFT: The Savvy Author’s Guide To Publicity
CH2.0: Apparently, the 99% does NOT like Communists defecating on their property
The Eye: Herman Cain’s 999 Plan

MTTM: Occupy Traverse City… (If I were to occupy anywhere, I would occupy Traverse City. It’s beautiful up there.)
Dewey: Ennui On Wall Street
Bot: Drug Tests for Gun Buyers?
FCBZ: Queen Elizabeth Nearing “Fuel Poverty”
TBA: Amazing Artwork

Pundette: Biden visits future Dem voters in York, PA
Gator: Do the Democrats really care about the “working American”?
Spellchek: 21st Century Statecraft – a U.S. blueprint for civil unrest
RR: Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal on Meet the Press = Who Cares?
TMGGB: Agenda 21…ICLEI Is Unconstitutional…Is It In Your Town?

Pravda: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughed at news of Gaddafi’s death

Via Pravda:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned about the death of Muammar Gaddafi via an SMS message. Clinton was staying in Kabul when she learned the news. The moment, when she was given a cell phone, was filmed by CBS NEWS as Clinton was getting ready for an interview.

Clinton received her BlackBerry from an assistant. Having read the message about Gaddafi’s capture, she exclaimed: “Wow!”

The US Secretary of State looked happy. She and the CBS reporter laughed about the death of the Libyan dictator. She paraphrased a well-known phrase by Julius Caesar and said: “We came, we saw, he died!”

Yep, this is smart diplomacy in action…

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These are not the people I want making decisions about my health care.

Generation Obama

This is a fantastic article discussing the economic troubles facing recent college graduates, a.k.a. “Generation Obama:”

This is Generation O: the age cohort that contributed, registered, volunteered and voted for Barack Obama with greater intensity than we have seen since at least the 1960 presidential election. Since then, the effect of President Obama’s failed economic policies has fallen most disproportionately on them.

The unemployment rates among Generation O not only suggest personal disappointment, but also large and lasting implications for them and for society.

Things will be difficult for some time for recent college grads:

A paper forthcoming in the American Economic Journal Applied Economics found that graduating in a recession leads to earnings losses that last for 10 years after graduation.

The authors, University of Toronto economics professor Philip Oreopoulos, Columbia University professor Till von Wachter, and economist Andrew Heisz of Statistics Canada, found that earnings losses are greater for new entrants to the labor force than for existing workers, who might see smaller raises, but who have jobs. In addition, recessions lead workers to accept employment in small firms that pay lower salaries.

That, in turn, may help to explain why there is in our country a creeping fear of downward mobility, a prospect that Generation O will not do as well as their parents.

Young male graduates have been particularly adversely affected, with an unemployment rate of 11 percent, compared to 7.9 percent for women. Five years ago male graduates had an unemployment rate of 5.8 percent, and the rate for females was 4.5 percent.

As pointed out previously here at MCT, it is going to take a long time to unwind the mess we face today and these findings are more proof of this fact.

The RealClearMarkets article closes with this:

It’s not just bad luck, or President George W. Bush’s fault, as Mr. Obama tries to suggest. Mr. Obama has promoted an Old Economy model that favors big corporations, labor unions and more government. But Generation O thrives best in a New Economy model that favors nimble start-ups, hard-charging union-free workplaces and minimal government interference.

Generation O voted for Barack Obama believing him to be a new kind of leader, but he has delivered them an Old Economy with European-style mandates (think Obamacare), sclerosis, and dysfunction. They put him in the White House, Barack Obama has consigned them to their parents’ house. Clearly, only one side made out well on that deal.

Be sure to read the rest, it is a real eye-opener.

Video: Judge Napolitano on the folly of the Federal Reserve

Via the Judge:

A government regulated and centrally planned economy has never produced personal prosperity or enhanced human freedom at any time in history. So why do we have one in America?

This is an excellent 5 min. explanation on how the Federal Reserve ‘works.’

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h/t Lew Rockwell

It’s like the Carter years all over again

Shrinking incomes.

Bottom line: The average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically speaking, in mid-2009. That means less money to spend at the spa or the movies, less for vacations, new carpeting for the house, or dinner at a restaurant.

In short, it means a less vibrant economy, with more Americans spending primarily on necessities.

And misery index creeping into view again.

Per capita disposal personal income – a key indicator of the standard of living – peaked in the spring of 2008, at $33,794 (measured as after-tax income). As of the second quarter of 2011, it was $32,479 – almost a 4 percent drop. If per capita disposable income had continued to grow at its normal pace, it would have been more than $34,000 a year by now.

The so-called misery index, another measure of economic well-being of American households, echoes the finding on the slipping standard of living. The index, a combination of the unemployment rate and inflation, is now at its highest point since 1983, when the US economy was recovering from a short recession and from the energy price spikes after the Iranian revolution.

Let’s hope Obama continues the Carter tradition  and we can see a sketch like this on SNL in 2013…

Hope and change…

Another glimpse into our ObamaCare future

People in the U.K. are still not happy with their government run health care system:

Current data on the UK’s awful record on cancer outcomes is just one indicator that this is not so. But even if the NHS’s technical outcomes were the best in the world (and it’s far short of that), what is most wrong with it is that it treats people inhumanely.

In a recent book on The Morality of Capitalism, US think-tanker Tom Palmer talks of his treatment for a serious condition in both public and private hospitals. In the private hospital, he was seen quickly by the right people, treated as a human being, everyone took an interest in him, and they respected his wishes. In the public hospital, he waited, was bossed around despite being in pain, had no human engagement with his doctor, and was generally treated as a piece of meat.

Why is it we import all the worst ideas from Europe when we can see them failing right before our eyes?

U.S. Looking at Mexico to construct desalination plant and provide more water

Via Fox News Latino:

Mexico may start sending water north as four major U.S. water districts help plan one of two huge desalination plant proposals in Playas de Rosarito, about 15 miles south of San Diego. Combined, they would produce 150 million gallons a day, enough to supply more than 300,000 homes on both sides of the border.

The plants are one strategy by both countries to wean themselves off of the Colorado River, which flows 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez. Decades of friction over the Colorado, in fact, are said to be a hurdle to current desalination negotiations.

Why would U.S water districts want to set up desalination plants in Mexico? You guessed it, overbearing environmental regulations in the U.S.

The proposed plants have also sparked concerns that American water interests looking to Mexico are simply trying to dodge U.S. environmental reviews and legal challenges.

Desalination plants can blight coastal landscapes, sucking in and killing fish eggs and larvae. They require massive amounts of electricity and dump millions of gallons of brine back into the ocean that can, if not properly disposed, also be harmful to fish.

But desalination has helped quench demand in Australia, Saudi Arabia and other countries lacking fresh water.

Fish larvae are more important than humans according to the EPA.