In This Dimension

Best-Ever Example of the Destructiveness of Minimum Wage

This is from the Wall Street Journal today (1 JUNE 2010).

The New Cannery Row

Congress wants $18 million to offset the jobs it destroyed in Samoa.

Hidden inside the latest Democratic spending bill is an $18 million taxpayer handout to American Samoa. How did that get in there? Read on for another lesson in the uncreative jobs destruction of the minimum wage.

When Democrats in Congress increased the minimum wage in 2007, the U.S. territory of 65,000 in the South Pacific pleaded for its traditional exemption from the wage law to prevent job losses. But Democrats followed union orders and said that if[…]

Taxes

Yep - that time of year again.

Here’s an interesting and educational video about tax compliance costs and what can be done about them.

Via BigGovernment.com

Why Would Democrats Care About The Deficit?

This is a long but very good column on America’s debt, deficit and budget plans going forward. It is worth the several minutes required to read it.

But the question I raise, one I have raised before, is this: Why should Democrats care about the Debt, and why do Conservatives continue to think that they do?

What seems to be the primary difference, indeed a foundational difference, between those currently pushing debt, and those reacting to the increase of same, is children - e.g. whether one has them.

People, including the author of the linked column, refer to the mountain of debt being left[…]

Deficit Spending Visualized as a Road Trip

This is a very cool video. You should watch. It’s only a couple of minutes.

In it deficit spending is expressed visually using the metaphor of a road trip across America. As a President and Congress spend more money they don’t have, the speed of the trip increases. As they spend less, it slows. When they pay-down Debt, the car reverses.

It’s very clever, very good in getting the message across. And excellent at showing those complaining that “Bush did it!” how much farther and faster The Messiah has spent borrowed money than anyone in history.

Zowie - Depression 2.0

Some numbers published here:

Government needs funding this year of $2.0 trillion (that includes the federal budget deficit, off-budget spending, and state and local needs). Private industry needs about $0.5 trillion. Part of the funding will come from the country’s savings. Total gross savings (new savings) is estimated to be $1.5 trillion. Assuming all savings is available, a shortfall of $1.0 trillion exists.

This money can come from foreign lending or inflation. But…China, Japan and everyone else are saying, “No, thanks.”

“The Treasury Department reported that foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell by $53 billion in December, surpassing the previous record of[…]

Executive Pay and Conservative Principles

Executive pay has become a hot button in the culture wars. The GOP needs to ensure its reaction to the Democrat proposals for the government to cap executive pay is not just a knee-jerk rejection, but is based on ideas other than the status-quo and increasing an unprecedented American divide between the haves and have-less, something that is not good for the body politic.

Bonuses or salaries of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for bankrupting one’s company or quitting and parachuting out of your contract - or even just doing a good job - are not Conservative ideals. No[…]

Is Harry Reid the Dumbest Man in America?

You decide.

Why do NV voters insist on sending this idiot to DC? Why does the Senate make him Majority Leader?

Getting to a socialist USA is easier than you think…

Since about 20 JAN 2009, and increasingly so since the introduction of any of the various “healthcare” plans by Congress, chatter has increased on the Right about turning America socialist. The general argument seems based on the idea that turning America into a socialist state requires some massive legislation about which we the people may complain, and which may or may not be passed, but which Tea Partiers and/or Sen. Brown may be in a position to stop.

It isn’t that hard, and people are deluding themselves when they think so.

All Obama and the Democrats need to do to force the[…]

America, China and the US Debt

So …. China has a few trillion of our debt. It’s becoming (has become?) a national security problem.

Deadbeats in the US are voting en-mass for Democrats, who now pass social welfare and tax & spend policies that ensure a permanent underclass hold on our national government.

National Democrats want to remake the nation in the image of California - utterly bankrupt and failed due to decades of Demo misrule. Just like the national future is looking darker the longer Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Schumer, Rangel…. stay in power…

Here’s a thought: Recover that $2T in debt China owns by…. selling California to[…]

Interactive Recession Map - and How Congress Will Make it Worse

Here is a startling interactive map, by county, of unemployment in the US as it entered the current recession. It’s based on Dept of Labor figures, starting in Jan 2007 and going through November 2009. It takes only a few seconds to watch.

“Sobering” doesn’t quite get the feeling across after watching it.

The only responses I can think of fall along the lines of OMG, Atlas Shrugged, and the lights are going out.

Once you have viewed this, go read this Reuters story (Reuters’ pulled it down after Obama whined to them, but it’s still up in several places on the web; this link[…]