Ridin out the Recession

“I am living so beyond my income, that it may be said to be living apart”
“First of all, there was a dream and the will to found a private kingdom, usually, but not necessarily, also a dynasty……Then there is the will to conquer, the impulse to fight, to prove oneself superior to others, to succeed for the sake, not for the fruits of success, but of success itself…….finally there is the joy of creating, of getting things done, or simply of exercising one’s energy and ingenuity”….this was written by the renown Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter, describing the essential character in his book “The Theory of Economic Development.
That will describes the public Steve Jobs, who passed away October 5th, 2011 at the too young age of 56, who could be irascible and dismissive and a control, freak. Yet who was also been driven far more by competitive challenges than by monetary. America has always managed to escape its economic difficulties and to create new industries because it provided the likes of Steve Jobs. ‘The freedom to peruse their dreams and the rewards for doing so. Their drive and ingenuity can’t be discovered by a loan committee at some government agency, they are the results of human integrity and passion.
His story isn’t just the story of a person, but the combination of time, place and person, spawning a career in industrial design of awesome proportions. This half Arab who was given up for adoption at birth, and went on to drop out of college, at the he age of 21, along with his friend and partner, Steve Jonick, working in Woznick’s parents garage began their adventure into the world., Steve Jobs sold his VW van to help finance the creation of Apple 1 and later Apple 11. Jobs created an empire (valued at $300 billion) that exceeded Microsoft and on some days Exxon Mobile, as the world’s most valuable company. All that would have been fine. Preferable to the medical torture and the premature professional swan song, but the legend did not need this sacrificial ending to secure his place in the industrial pantheon with Edison, Ford and Gates.
The current malaise has made Americans doubt our ability to prosper and grow as the country always has. As long as we remember that the source of that prosperity comes not from government managers, but from restless, relentless individuals like STEVE JOBS…

AMATEUR HOUR AT THE WHITE HOUSE………When writing about the White House, I always “try” to attempt to see things clearly, and to consider the evidence. I sift through the evidence contained in newspapers and the inter net, before making my judgment, most of it critical, and down deep I always hope I am wrong.
In reading Ron Susskind’s book on the creation of President Obama’s economic policy, “Confidence Men”. If Susskind is right, I have been wrong, none of it was as bad as I wrote, it was worse…
The most famous part of the book is where Larry Summers quote that he saw it as a “home alone” administration, with no grown-ups in charge. But there is more than that. Most of remember the president as in a difficult position from day one, two wars and an economic crash, bur Mr. Susskind recasts the picture.
Like FDR, Mr. Obama had two big advantages: “overwhelming popular support, Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, and the latitude afforded by crisis”. But things were weird from the beginning. Some of his aides became convinced that “his lack of managerial experience “would do him in. He ran the meetings as if they were afternoon talk shows. As a sitting president, the polls (don’t forget the Dewey-Truman fiasco) he should be ahead in the polls, but is failing to be ahead of the 4 or 5 leading Republicans, which will be tougher for him once the Republicans reduce their choice for president.
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself”………..Mark Twain
REFORM SOCIAL SECURITY? ONE WAY, REFORM DEBATES……The so-called debates among Republican presidential aspirants are classic examples of media spreading miss-understanding instead of enlightenment. Governor Perry’s statement when he called Social Security a ‘Ponzi scheme”, most viewers are no more informed than before as to what a “Ponzi scheme” was, was it good for Social Security, if not what are the objections that may apply to Social Security. The whole “debate,” with far more candidates having a realistic chance of receiving the nomination, means that serious issues cannot get serious attention. The most we learn from these debates is who is glib and fast on his feet.
We already have a president who is glib and fast on his feet. But he is a disaster when it comes to the economy, among other things. Do we need more of the same from the Republicans? We need leaders who have thought through the many complex issues facing the country, not leaders with flashy words and snappy comebacks.
WHAT SOLYNDRA FIASCO????…..If you thought the $535 million scandal had chastened the fearless venture capitalists of the Obama Administration, think again. The Department of Energy shoveled out $1, 1 billion in new loan guarantees to solar projects Nevada and Arizona this past Wednesday, and more deals are pending before the $18 billion program funded by the 2008 stimuli’s expires today, Friday September 30, 2011.
Following their past history, I think the rush raises questions about how carefully these outlays are being scrutinized. Especially in light of solar maker Solyndra’s bankruptcy. The FBI, Treasury Department and Congress are all investigating who approved the politically connected California company loan guarantee, and why. The Case is an embarrassment for the White House, which touted Solyndra as a model for its green agenda.
Yet the Department of Energy seems oddly removed from the uproar, Secretary Steven Chu said when questioned” If we want to be a player in the global clean energy race, we must continue to invest in innovative technologies that enable commercial scale deployment of clean, renewable power like solar” Translation: China is throwing taxpayer money into solar, so Americans should, too.”
If solar power becomes commercially viable; the private investors will be there in a skinny minute. The Energy Information estimates that the new natural gas-fired will create energy at a cost of $63.19 per megawatt hour, compared to the Administrations “green “favorites, off shore wind and solar plants. Like the one in Nevada …..will cost $242.20 and $311.80……..now that sounds like a good reason…..expect the Administration to step in and regulate the deliberate burning of the natural gases that collect when drilling for oil…….there has to be a use for this excess gas, which must have a value, probable too expensive at this point in time…….
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phases. If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it”…….Ronald Reagan
SEPTEMBER 16th WAS NATIONAL PRISONER DAY/ MIA…….Something I did not know…..the focus is to insure that Americans remember it’s their reasonability to stand behind those who serve our nation and do everything possible to account for those who do not return. There are more than 90,000 U.S. servicemen and women still un– accounted for from World War 2, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. The stark Black and WHITE POW/ MIA flag honoring America’s prisoner of wars and missing in action is a powerful reminder.
“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle”…..Winston Churchill
TWO GOOD MEN …….Former Governor of Florida. Claude Kirk passed away this past week………the other, cranky Andy Rooney, at the age of 98, is leaving “60 MINUTES” after 33 years….. His closing remarks will be remembered and missed…..
BIG GOVERNMENT RISING……..How does a trillion dollars in more federal spending, sound to you? For most Americans, the idea of a growing government at a time when deficits are sky high might seem preposterous. For those on the left, it’s the only way they can think of to get our economy moving in the right direction. Some think that some sort of a new NEW DEAL should be include in President Obama’s much touted jobs speech, which would add to the continued rise of big government.
Of course there always will be a “MAXINE WATERS” whose prescription for pulling the U.S. economy out of its slump, which carries a price tag of a “trillion dollars+ or more, joining the revolution of the Tea Party, or the Teamsters President Hoffa calling for a war on the Tea Party, or V.P. Joe Biden applauding the AFL-CIO for keeping the “barbarians from the gates”—that is, their political opponents.. An “infrastructure bank” is also part of the President’s package which briefly calls for $5 billion a year, for 6 years, provide loans, loan grantees, and grants to eligible transportation infrastructure projects. Translation: more big government and more federal bureaucracy…..another road to nowhere.
ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN’S EXIT……when Admiral Mullen hands over the most senior military job this Friday, the changing of the guard at the Pentagon will be complete. Robert Gates left the defense secretary’s post in July. General David Petraeus, who over saw the surge in Iraq and Afghanistan, hung up his uniform in August to run the CIA (I kind of smell a story behind this move) Admiral Mullen, who chaired the joint Chiefs of Staff since 2007..
IRAQ COMPLETES DEAL TO BUY F-16;S……….the deal is considered sensitive in Iraq, and the Pentagon and State Department have declined comment until a formal announcement is made by Iraq…..The decision to go forward with the purchase was an unexpected surge in government oil revenues
“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else”…….Frederick Bastiat, French Economist
A BIRD-BRAINED PROSECUTION…..The hostility by the Obama Administration to gas and oil is well known, but last week it took an especially fowl turn. The U.S. Attorney for North Dakota hauled seven oil and natural gas companies, for killing 28 migratory birds that were found dead near waste oil lagoons. You may be surprised to learn that the Administration isn’t prosecuting wind companies for similar offenses. Law enforcement officials in North Dakota. Said, ‘the most absurd legal action taken by the government in the history of North Dakota”
THE BUFFETT ALTERATIVE Tax……..The entire Buffett Rule premise is false and needs more space to support that statement. President Johnson’s, last Treasury Secretary was a man named Joe Barr…who served only 30 days, what made Barr famous was his testimony before Congress in January 1969, that 21 millionaires had paid no income tax in 1967, fewer than115 tax returns reporting incomes above $200,000 had also paid no income tax, and Barr predicted a “taxpayer revolt” unless something was done about it. Washington proceeded to bend tax policy to chase those 21 millionaires, and so we got the Minimum Tax of 1969, that later became the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT now hits 4 million of our millionaires, and 27% of households that paid in 2008 had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or less. In using the new tax the IRS reports for those who earned more than $1,000,000 in adjusted gross income, paid an average income tax rate of 24.3%. We will go deeper into the wild statement of Mr. Buffett , who earns more from capital gains and dividends, and the larger statement that CEO’s are paying less taxes that their secretaries, is “pure Obama Hokum.”
‘Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and the car keys to teen agers”…………P.J. O’Rourke……Libertarian
THE PRESIDENT OF CONTEMPT………. Nixon was tricky, Ford was clumsy, Carter was dull, Reagan was sunny, Bush 41 was prudent, Clinton felt your pain, Bush 43 was stubborn , and Barack Obama is………
Early in America’s acquaintance with the man who was to become the 44th president, the word that sprung from the media to describe him was “cool’. The Obama cool made for a reassuring contrast with his warm and fuzzy appeals to hope, change and being the one we all were waiting for. We saw flashes of contempt during the campaign; only after Mr. Obama took office did it become clear that contempt would be both style and method of his governance. The gratuitous return of the Churchill bust to Britain. The slamming the Boston police officer who arrested Henry Gates. The high-profile rebuke of the Supreme Court members at his 2010 State of the Union address. The diplomatic, petty as well, of Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu and Nicholas Sarkosy. The endless assaults on the Wall Street “fat cats” who caused the 10% unemployment. The never ending baiting of millionaires and billionaires, jet owners and anyone else who, as Black Entertainment Television’s Robert Johnson’s memorial service put it on Sunday, “tried rich and then poor and like rich better.”
HAS THE CLASS ACT BEEN DISMISSED?…………There is a lot of speculation as to whether the Obama administration has given up on the CLASS ACT, the health reform’s long term health insurance program. The CLASS ACT is meant to cover home care costs for the disabled and those who need long-term needs. This bill is no stranger to controversy; earlier this month the Republican Policy Committee put out a report that cited an Obama administration official calling the program “a recipe for disaster “The concern has always been over the CLASS program’s long-term stability, which relies on voluntary enrollment. Speculation that the Obama administration had given up on CLASS started when an e-mail sent by departing CLASS ACT OFFICE actuary Bob Yee, “I am leaving my position as HSS has decided to close down the CLASS Office effective tomorrow”
That is about all there is for now, see you all in the funny papers, where I am sure there will some more “exciting “ issues to discuss……..stay well. AP