Paul M. Jones

To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills. So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

via Cafe Hayek: Wal-Mart reality check.

I'm seeing nascent signs of a new (but actually old) fallacy, namely that since health care costs can (will?) crush the budget, we don't have to worry so much about other expenditures. The mental story runs something like this: "if we don't cure health care cost inflation, it doesn't matter; if we do cure health care cost inflation, we can afford it." That's exactly the kind of false mental framing that behavioral economics identifies as irrational in other settings.

via Marginal Revolution.

Tyler, too, fears increased taxes -- but via something like a consumption tax (or value-added tax) *in addition to* the existing Federal taxes.

And people wonder why the Tea Party movement strikes such a chord.

If Obama were trying to wreck America as a superpower, what would he be doing differently?

via Instapundit » Blog Archive » A VILLAGE CAN’T RAISE A CHILD WITH NUCLEAR ARMS, OR SOMETHING: Obama Breaks With Gates, Cancels Nuk….

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has bounced an astounding 30% from its March 9 low of 6547. Is this the dawn of a new era? Are we off to the races again?

I'm not so sure. Only a fool predicts the stock market, so here I go. This sure smells to me like a sucker's rally. That's because there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.

Read the whole thing at Was It a Sucker's Rally? - WSJ.com.

I have been saying for a while that I think things are going to get bad again, for at least a short period. I think we're headed for a "W"-shaped curve (two significant drops before the real recovery starts). I hope I am wrong.

Indeed, I think that with the record-setting spending from this administration (President *and* Congress), we are headed for even *more* trouble later. There are only two possible ways to fund that spending: exorbitant inflation, or exorbitant taxation. Either one is horrible. And leftist commie socialists wonder why the Tea Parties strike such a chord.

Kirk: I think I have the least to say about him, because he made the most of the opportunity to remold the character without changing it. If he didn’t seem Kirk-like to some, it’s a reminder of how much Shatner’s performance hinged - on - mannerisms, the abrupt! Gesture. There was one perfect moment when he nailed Shatner-as-Kirk, though: walking on to the bridge at the end of the movie. They must have loved that in the rushes, and it makes you wonder how much more he could have done. It was wise not to do more.

via » Blog Archive » Tuesday, May 12: the inevitable review.

I saw Star Trek this weekend, and while I have complaints, all is forgiven. The movie is a *whole* lot of fun. I rate it "full evening price", and I expect to see it in the theater at least one more time at a matinee.

Till just commented that all my blog posts are showing on Planet PHP, not just the PHP ones. My apologies to everyone; I thought the Planet was using only my PHP feed. I have emailed the administrators with the correct URI for the PHP-only feed. Again, very sorry to have spammed everyone with non-PHP content.

This critique started when some women systematically looked up at the top of society and saw men everywhere: most world rulers, presidents, prime ministers, most members of Congress and parliaments, most CEOs of major corporations, and so forth -- these are mostly men. Seeing all this, the feminists thought, wow, men dominate everything, so society is set up to favor men. It must be great to be a man. The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top. If one were to look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds mostly men there too.

via USA Sentinel - The Apex Fallacy: An Interview with Dr. Helen Smith by Bernard Chapin , 10/23/08.

I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union. There they spend all eternity explaining to their victims why they couldn't possibly have risked their precious babies' future in the public school system, yet felt perfectly free to fling other peoples' children into it by the thousands.

via Megan McArdle.

I am not a Constitutional Law scholar, but this looks pretty good to me, and very much within the spirit of the Tea Parties:

http://federalismamendment.com/

You can grab the amendment document here:

http://federalismamendment.com/The_Bill_of_Federalism.pdf

These look to be the kind of smaller-government Federal modifications, and ways to more-properly restrict the overreaching Federal government. A short run-down:

1. Limits the Federal use of the Inter-State Commerce Clause.
2. No unfunded Federal mandates, and no Federal spending on things the Federal government has no power to otherwise regulate.
3. Activity occurring entirely within a State may not be regulated by the Federal government.
4. States may rescind Federal law when 2/3ds of the States vote to do so. (Is this related to the drug war?)
5. No Federal taxes on estates or gifts (the "Death Tax"); repeals existing taxes and denies future implementations of same.
6. No Federal income tax; repeals the 16th Amendment, thus ending the income tax and denying future implementations of same. (Excise and sales taxes are explicitly allowed, paving a way for the Fair Tax.)
7. Term limits: 2 for Senators, 6 for Representatives.
8. Balanced budget veto. This looks like it gives the President a line-item veto power over any budget items that leave the Federal government with more debt than in the preceding budget.
9. More explicit protections for the liberties and privileges of the People, both enumerated and unenumerated.
10. This one's the kicker: "[No Judicial Alterations of the Constitution.] The words and phrases of this Constitution shall be interpreted according to their meaning at the time of their enactment, which meaning shall remain the same until changed pursuant to Article V." Gotta love that.

From PowerLine:

On April 21, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act of 2009--"SIGTARP"--submitted his quarterly report to Congress on his office's activities in relation to the TARP program. The report is a disquieting document that should be read by every American--certainly be every taxpayer.

The Inspector General's report documents the stunning and at least partly illegal expansion of TARP from the $700 billion originally allocated by Congress to what is now a $3 trillion complex of programs. This chart shows the various programs that are now included within SIGTARP's oversight, and how they have expanded from the initial $700 billion. Note that some of the programs are still incipient; $3 trillion is by no means a final number.

...

What conclusions can we draw? 1) The government's $3 trillion and counting TARP program represents the greatest opportunity for sharp operators to profit at taxpayer expense in history. 2) The Obama administration is either in favor of giving Wall Street sharks this opportunity or, at a minimum, doesn't much mind doing so. (If this seems odd, remember where Obama got the biggest chunk of campaign contributions in 2008.) 3) It may be that the TARP complex of programs is the beginning of a national-socialist type takeover of the financial services industry by the federal government. Thus, 4) we can only hope that this turns out not to be the case, and TARP is only the biggest--and perhaps, by the end of the day, the crookedest--waste of taxpayer money in history. Finally, 5) so far the only person or organization who appears to be looking out for the taxpayers is the Special Inspector General. We will be reading his future reports with great interest.