Friday, October 28, 2011

What happens at the DOJ stays at the DOJ?

Another interesting development over at the Department of Justice Not only did Operation Fast & Furious, the federal program to sell lethal weapons to Mexican drug lords, completely slip Attorney General Eric Holder's mind, but now he wants to be able to lie to the public when he feels like it. It seems he does anyway, but it is against the rules.

Ever hear of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). That's the provision that allows people like UFO hunters to pester the CIA and FBI and those kinds of folks to dig through their old archives looking for evidence of Project Majestic and stuff like that.

Or suppose you're in congress, and wanted to review a couple federal warrants, or inter-departmental memos about exactly HOW to sell lethal weapons to Mexican drug lords. Under the FOIA rules, the federal bureaus and agencies have to go through their files, find the information, black out whole pages that might contain classified stuff, and send it to you.

Eric Holder wants to be able to lie to you, so he can say, "Sorry, we have no record of that."

Man, if you want to bullet-proof the federal government, this is the way. No one could ever sue these bastards, or even gather information from them for a suit against someone else. Or even know what the hell the Dept. of Justice is even doing all day.

Amazing.

Not only is this current regime wildly irresponsble, now they don't even think they should be held accountable for what they do.

Yeah, what happens at Justice stays at Justice, is that it?

What the heck kind of a show is Comrade running, anyway?

This Holder critter needs to resign, big time.

Save the Republic.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Ooies in Oakland -- Why not occupy Pelosi's house?

Just saw on the news that the "OOies" -- that is, Occupy Oakland -- were run off last night by police with tear gas. The crowd wouldn't disperse when politely asked. They started throwing garbage and eggs at the cops, who threw back tear gas.

Why don't they move their HQ to Pazzo Pelosi's house in San Francisco? Or her vineyard? Plenty of room there. And Pazzo is sympathetic. Surely she'd be willing to let them crap on her lawn and beat tom-toms under her window all night.

She's rich, too. So the OOies could continue their protest against the wealthy without breaking their staggering steps. Who could ask for more?

Just a suggestion.

Save the Republic.

There goes the health care industry

A couple intereting developments in socialized medicine in the USA.

Last week or so, that Sibelius person who runs things in DC announced that the long-term health care provision in the socialized medicine act is more or less defunct. "Long-term health care" refers to an extended stay in someplace like a rehab center or nursing home, for instance, after a stroke or a serious car accident.

Under socialized medicine, the plan was to get a whole bunch of people to sign up (and we'd all just flock to it), and pay into the system for about 10 years before we were eligible for any benefits. Meanwhile, the money paid in would go toward funding socialized medicine in general. A Ponzi scheme that appears to use Social Security as a financial prototype.

Anyway, the only people who signed up for long-term care under socialized medicine apparently are people who NEED long-term right now. In other words, the system isn't financially sound (or actuarially sound, to use the insurance word). Not enough healthy people signing up. Not enough money collected to fund long-term care nor to help fund socialized medicine generally.

So Sibelius said something like the program was going to be canceled. Only the Comrade doesn't want that.

Well, then he can pay for it. How's that? Crack open your wallet, fat cat. Get your unions to buy into it. That might work. Oh, but the unions are exempt from socialized medicine. Sorry, I forgot.

In another area -- and this will surely go a long way toward killing off seniors -- health care providers' pay under Medicare is going to be reduced.

The so-called "Doc Fix" was not included in the socialized medicine bill. The Doc Fix was legislation that adjusts the amount that doctors and others are paid for the services they provide for seniors with Medicare. In the past, these payment amounts were reviewed every year or so and were adjusted for inflation or whatever. However, no Doc Fix has been passed since the socialized medicine bill went through. Most pundits believed this was because if doctors had to be paid, it would show that socialized medicine was financially unsustainable. So congress just ignored it.

The American Medical Assn., which really doesn't represent the majority of doctors in the US, wanted congress et. al., to scrap this system of annual reviews all together and replace it with something more stable. Well, careful what you wish for, dudes.

A group of bureaucrats known collectively as MedPac are now running the socialized medicine system in America. MedPac has decided to, yes, do away with the annual reviews for doctor pay and replace it -- with a 10-year program that will steadily but surely reduce Medican payments to doctors by about 30%.

General practitioners will get a 1% raise, but then their pay rate will be frozen for the next 10 years. Specialists are hardest hit. They get a 5.9% reduction in their pay each year for the next three years, then the rate is frozen for the next seven years.

The object is to get doctor pay aligned with pay for, like, hospital orderlies and the cleaning crew. You know, SEIU members.

You know what the impact of this is going to be. Right now, many doctors refuse to see Medicare patients because Medicare pays only about half of what doctors charge. Like $300.00 to do hip replacement surgery. Doctors -- and hospitals, by the way -- make up these losses by charging twice as much to insured patients. It's called "cost shifting," and it's the main reason why health insurance costs so much and why insurance premiums are skyrocketing.

This isn't going to get any better. And it strikes hardest at seniors on Medicare.

Doctors who work with Medicare patients will not be able to keep their offices open, hire staff, pay their own bills. Specialists won't be allowed to charge any more than GPs, even though many of them see far fewer patients.

The inevitable result will be rationing. Dr. Deathwish/Berwick and Sibelius are, I suppose, in the throes of orgasm right now. "We did it!" they shriek, jumping up and down and throwing confetti. "We've destroyed the health care industry in America!"

So, if you can't get the seniors in line behind your policies -- and a whole bunch of seniors actually voted for these policies, in hopes of increasing their freebies (see AARP) -- the simplest thing is to just kill them off. It's called attrition. Or maybe serves-you-right.

Nice, huh?

Save the Republic.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

White House tries "end run" around congress?

I find it interesting and somewhat sociopathic that the Comrade apparently believes seizing autocratic control of the U.S. government is the only way to "get something done." Yet he apparently supported Kadaffi's rather grim death, Kadaffi being only the latest in a long line of totalitarians who met rather sorry and bloody ends.

What makes the Comrade any different from them?

See, whether you decide if he's sociopath or a narcissist, the Comrade's greatest failure is his inability to see himself as anything but heroic and his opponents as anything more than competition. He can't see the other side. And the "other side" in this case is government limited by the US Constitution.

He's right. Everyone who opposes him is wrong. Any questions?

So, being a narcissist/sociopath, he somehow believes it's OK for him to ignore any but his own voice.

He's right. Everyone who opposes him is wrong. Very simple, really.

Now he's openly doing all  he can to crank up operations in the executive branch to get his policies put into place, since the US Congress won't approve them.

The Comrade blames the Republicans for congress's failure to support him. The truth is, the democratics in congress don't support him, either, except for Brain-dead Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader. And all Reid can manage to do is to throw a wrench into the works of the US Senate so that it's unable to look at or debate or vote on anything. And that's enough to neutralize congress.

By contrast, the Republican-lead House of Representatives is teeming with dozens of new ideas to fix the economy, kick-start trade, clean up the mortgage mess, etc. etc. But once any of this legislation passes the House, Harry Reid pigeon-holes it in the Senate, won't even let anything be taken up on the floor. Brain-dead Harry Reid is, well, brain dead.

The US government is structured in such a way that when we can't get a majority to support a particular policy or action, then it can't be enacted.

The Comrade is extremely uncomfortable with this, because he can't get any support from anyone -- except about 21% of far-left socialist-communist die-hards -- for aything he's proposing. The Comrade is extremely pissed off that nobody loves him anymore. But, convinced that he's still "right," despite the complete lack of any significant public or political support, he wants to do what he wants to do, and to the hell with the public and their representatives.

He's a diktator. Or wants to be. But he's hamstrung by the Constitution.

That's the Constitution's main job, doofus. That's what it's there for. To take the wind out of your sails and spare some personal and political liberty for the rest of us.

Good to know it's still working.

But with people like Jesse Jackson Jr. waddling around, whining about a "congressional rebellion," how long will that last? And how the hell can congress be rebelling? Congress was never intended to just fall in line behind the president. The legislative branch has just as much power and authority as the executive branch. Even Brain-dead Harry Reid can't get around that one.

So the Comrade says, "I want to turn this free, capitalistic nation into a socialist workers' paradise, just lilke Cuba, the USSR, Venezuela, Red China." The rest of the nation says no.

He doesn't think this kind of opposition should stop him. But then he's apparently a narcissistic sociopath who can't see the other side.

Save the Republic. Vote this clown out of office.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Nobody really likes a diktator

Hope the Comrade has closely watched those videos of Kadafffi's final moments.

Nobody likes a diktator, Comrade. It never ends well for them.

Save the Republic.

Biden comes out early with Halloween scare tactics

If I had the time and wanted to waste some money, I'd send Vice President Joe Biden a set of those wax vampire teeth kids used to have on Halloween. If the FDA hasn't banned them for being dangerously fun. Plus, they tasted like Bazooka chewing gum, maybe a carcinogen, no? (If you continually feed rhesus monkeys 33 pounds of chewing gum every two hours, they probably will get sick and die.)

But Joe's out of the Halloween box just a little early. "O-o-o-o-oh kids, you'll be raped and murdered if congress doesn't pass the Job Killer Bill."

In a separate event, he made an appearance at a grammar school and lectured a class of 8-year-olds on how this bill should be passed. Think they'll write their congressmen? Most of them were sittng there quite bored and confused. I mean, this is the clown they were promised?

I don't know where Joe Biden has spent most of life, but seems to me that the police are funded by local states and municipalities. Being very often unionized, I'm sure the police benefited from Stimulus I, but actual statistics indicate that crime has been going down, not up.

So Joe Biden is basically full of crap. But we all knew that. Doesn't stop him from mounting the ramparts to wave some kind of flag. "Tax the rich! Support the unions!"

And all the money that goes there will eventually be recycled, through donations, into the Comrade's campaign fund.

I'm insulted by this garbage. Also by the Owies, who don't seem to have any sense or any but personal problems, like with hygiene, but who apparently are supposed to be plucking the heartstrings of America. Here's a hint: white trash has never been sympathetic.

This is the Comrade on the campaign trail. He's been a disater as president, so he goes out and does what he knows how to do:  tell lies and raise rabble.

And stupid, clueless Joe Biden helps him work the crowd.

You want rape, Joe? A woman says she was raped by an Owie at a rally in Cleveland. What's really interesting is the media response. No attempt to identify the alleged perpetrator. Instead the lamestream media was all in a tizzy asking, "What kind of impact will this have on the movement?"

I didn't see Joe Biden rushing out to Cleveland to comfort the victim and lead the charge against the thug who assaulted her. 'Course, that's not his job. His job is to make a damnfool out of himself to spread a message so stupid even the Comrade doesn't want to be directly associated with it.

And now all over America Online, banner ads showing a smiling and confident First Family, urging people to sign up... for something. He needs the naive and ignorant vote. Appealing to the 13 and 14-year-olds on AOL? No one old enough to pay their own rent gives him any real attention anymore.

Comes down to same old thing -- Do you believe this b.s. or your own eyes?

It's up to you.

Save the Republic.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The revolution has arrived! And it looks kinda silly

Just read an interesting article in the 10/18 Wall Street Journal by pollster Doug Schoen. Apparently his company sent someone down to Wall Street to actually survey the Owies, find out who they are, what they do, what they want, etc.

From the article:

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

What the Owies seem to really want is revolution. Apparently many of them have been poised and waiting for this moment since 1965, and certainly since Woodstock.

To wit:

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but 58% oppose raising taxes for everybody, with only 36% in favor. And by a close margin, protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%).
Schoen goes on to discuss the political dangers the dems face by supporting these wingnuts. Like, David Fluff, White House mouthpiece, has noted that the Owies are representative of many Americans (which they aren't, by the way; the USA is in majority right of center), and Nancy Pelosi almost squeezed out a crocodile tear talking about them.

So Pazzo and Comrade, go ahead, embrace these loonies. See if that gets you re-elected. Yeah, Vive la revolution!

Meanwhile, another poll shows that the American city with the most millionnaires and highest per capita income is... wait for it... Washington, DC.

(Pause here, laughing, coffee shooting out my nose.)

Thus the Owies may be in the wrong place -- on several counts. As I've indicated several times, the Fat Cats and the greed on Wall Street is far surpassed the Fat Cats and the greed inside the Beltway.

Probably write more later.

Meanwhile, Save the Republic.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Missing the Solyndra issue

I listened to Darrel Issa (R-CA, heads up some oversight committee in congress making sure government corruption doesn't get TOTALLY out of hand) about Solyndra, and also a couple other pundits talking about it. And it occurs to me that people -- especially congresscritters -- are missing the key issue about Solyndra.

Seems to me that many other people are ticked off about the feds "picking winners and losers," and Solyndra -- a company set up to produce solar panels -- came in as a definite loser.

But that's not the point. Unlike myself and many others, Issa isn't concerned about the feds "investing" in private industry, or "fostering growth" as they like to pretend.

No, the real issue about Solyndra is that that company was tottering on the brink of bankruptcy when the Comrade gave it something like $527 million dollars. Wasn't that just shortly before Solyndra declared bankruptcy? I mean, at the time, nobody had much hope for that company's continued existence.

See, the money was never intended to support Solyndra and/or ensure its existence. The money was intended -- and apparently was used -- to pay back the company's key investors before it declared bankruptcy and ran out on its creditors. Think very high-level money laundering.

And, curiously enough, one of the key investors in Solyndra is a dem "bundler." That is, he raises funds from a number of different donors, then bundles them up and doles them out to whichever politician he deems "worthy" of them.

He gave a whole pile of money to the Comrade.

See how that works?

Maybe the Wall Street Owies should ponder on Solyndra for a while if they want something to really whine about.

It just amazes me how the Comrade manages to pilfer money out of the public treasury to support his campaigns. Often taking a round-about route, like running it throught the unions first, or some other leech organization. Give the money, jobs, contracts to them, they turn around and donate it to the Comrade. Who ends up footing the bill? You guessed it.

What I find stupefying, though, is that the Comrade is so ready to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Once he destroys the middle class and strips the rich of everything, he'll have no place else to go. No one else to rob. He's not thinking far enough ahead.

That's it for right now.

Save the Republic.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Wall street protesters: "Give me your money"

The so-called "occupy Wall Street" protesters -- Owies?? -- seem to be either overtaken by marxists or are clarifying their message.

Bottom line, what they seem to be saying is: "You have money. Give it to me."

The truth is, you have to run that kind of demand through congress -- that would legalize the theft.

The Owies don't seem to have the wherewithal to do that. They seem to be mainly competent in pooping on police cars, peeing in public, sharing drugs and needles, and making lots of noise.

So this is "class warfare"? This is the "class" we're all supposed to be concerned about?

Looks like trash to me, I'm sorry.

And now they seem to be threatening violence. In Rome, Italy, at an apparently sympathetic protest, violence actually did break out. Don't know the details. Don't care to know.

But it's unconscionable that the Comrade and the "lamestream" media seem to be egging these people on. They're rabble, you know, I'm not even sure they're marxists -- but those with the megaphones are. And they could be just trying to co-opt the Owies. Who knows? Good grief, if this is the Comrade's constituency, he's so far left as to be completely disconnected from the nation. Which he is, left's face it.

New York's Mayor Bloomberg first defended the Owies, and many people continue to try to explain them, empathize with them, etc. Then Bloomberg tried to sweep them out of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street because, apparently, the stench and filth is intolerable. They wouldn't move and apparently Bloomberg and the cops are afraid of violence. With such a rabble of unruly and apparently only half-civilized people, violence is always possible -- being uninformed and inarticulate, violence and acting out are all they can do. Especially when they don't know what they want, except other peoples' money.

But to pretned they represent any significant segment of the US population is quite insulting to us "53%-ers."

Save the Republic.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Comrade offering grounds for impeachment?

Well, as expected, the Comrade's Job Killer Bill failed in the dem-dominated US Senate. He can't even blame that on Republicans. A member of the House said the bill was offered there, but none of the dem members of the House wanted to sign on to sponsor it.

So it's dead in the water. Nobody wants it. Even the Comrade's comrades won't touch it with a fork. Not even Durbin? Not even Pelosi? Just think about it.

So the Comrade addressed somethng called the Jobs Council today, and recommended that, since the bill failed, he and his people should "scour" their rules and regulations "to find access to act administratively without an authorization from congress."

In other words, he's saying, "Screw congress. Enact the provisions of the bill as bureaucratic regulatios and executive orders."

So, no surprise, the Comrade is on the record as an autocrat and a diktator.

This guy's a real piece of work, huh?

This moron is running America?

He should be impeached. He seems to be confusing the USA with Venezuela or Iran.

Save the Republic.

Iran the greatest danger to the world

Today Atty General Eric Holder announced that the feds had arrested a guy with dual US-Iranian citizenship in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the US in Washington, DC, and also to blow up the Israeli embassy (in Argentina or the US?) and the Saudi embassy in Argentina. This Iranian, named something like Arbabisar (maybe we should call him Arbeit-mach-frei, the slogan that hung over the gate to Auschwitz), was working with the Mexican drug cartel, the Zetas, to set the whole thing up.

Apparently Iran had promised the Zetas $1.5 million and a whole bunch of opium in exchange for their help. Opium is a huge cash crop in the Middle East, you know. That's where opium originated

And I suppose Eric Holder would have sold them the weapons.

Actually. Arbabisar contacted a person he believed to be a member of the Zetas, but the guy was a DEA informant. Arbabisar also was working with another Iranian, Shakura or something like that, who's in Iran, or someplace, right now.

Strikes me as a little strange that Arbabisar was arrested Sept. 29, and the event and the plot weren't revealed until yesterday, Oct. 11. I suppose it's Holder's way of demonstrating that he's doing something in office: having press conferences.

I really believe Iran is the greatest danger to world peace, mainly because it's developing nuclear weapons. And nobody's really doing much to stop them, except Israel. And the Comrade just isn't very fond of Jews, apparently, and doesn't seem to grasp that while Iran wants to push Israel into the sea, the Really Big Score for them is the Great Satan, the USA. Iranian president Abracadabrajab is crazy enough to actually do it.

And now maybe Eric Holder is getting an inkling of why the USA should secure its borders. And really, it's kinda stupid to not secure your borders. I mean, one of the definitions of a "cell" is that it's self-contained. It's like a biological principle that any stand-alone life form is defined by its borders. But apparently Holder doesn't understand "entityship" or believes it shouldn't apply to the USA. You'll have to ask him why. Maybe that's what he regards as "democracy." Pretty stupid to me.

And so much for the Comrade's moronic faith in Iran's "good intentions." 'Course, if he hadn't figured out before now that Iran actually believes it's at war with us, he's probably just completely incapable of rational thought altogether. Blinded by an idiotic ideology, you might say. "We are the world" and all that jazz.

That's all. I'm very tired.

Save the Republic.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Eric Holder needs to resign

Do you know what the Peter Principle is? It states that in many cases, people will continue to be promoted to the level of their incompetence. That is, to a job that's just beyond their capabilities. Like Eric Holder as US Attorney General.

Darrel Issa (R, CA), head of the congressional committee that asks questions about what the feds are doing to America (or something like that), has been trying to unravel the so-called "Fast & Furious" scandal. See, the ATF -- those folks who brought us the Ruby Ridge and David Koresh debacles -- apparently with assists from the FBI and DEA, have overseen the sale of at least 1,500 high-powered guns to "straw buyers" in the USA. The straw buyers act as conduits -- they turn around and sell the guns to Mexican drug cartels.

Under auspices of Eric Holder's Department of Justice, the ATF, FBI, and DEA have joined forces to make sure that these guns went to straw buyers, who in turn, sold them to Mexican drug cartels. In the cutesy language of law enforcement agencies, they let the guns "walk." Walk across the border, so they could be used to slaughter Mexican grammar school teachers, for example, and US border agents.

So in the congressional hearings, Issa asked Holder basically, "What the hell were you thinking?"

Holder answered, in essence, "What? Me? Thinking? That's not my job."

Holder's been so busy absolving Black Panthers of violating the voting rights of white people in Philadelphia and crafting legal loopholes so that Islamo-terrorists can run free and blow up a few more American cities that he hasn't had time to think about much else.

Holder's last job was defending terrorists in federal courts. So as chief of the Justice Dept... I mean, isn't that a little bit like putting, oh I don't know, Bonnie & Clyde, in charge of bank security? I mean, who picked this clown?

You see, Holder says he gets 100 "memos" a week. These are written documents that describe what his department is doing. He hasn't the time to bother reading them. But isn't managing the Dept. of Justice precisely his job? I mean, if he's too busy to run the Dept. of Justice, what's he getting paid for exactly? Seeing what he can do to skew DOJ in the direction of "social justice"?

Apparently he regards the arming of Mexican drug cartels as a useful function of establishing "social justice." I mean, killing US border guards would definitely enhance illegal border crosssings. See how nicely that works for the democrats?

The other theory that seems to explain Holder's lunacy is that he wanted all kinds of US-made weapons in Mexico, wanted the guns to be found at crime scenes, etc., so that he could say, "See, we need to more strictly control guns in the USA." But when you've actually ORDERED your department to make sure US-made weapons go to Mexican drug lords... well, that kinda screws up that scheme, doesn't it? I mean, the gun dealers didn't want to sell the guns to the straw buyers. The ATF insisted they do it.

So, reminiscent of Sgt. Shultz in "Hogan's Heroes," Holder announces, "I know nothing!" And the Comrade supports him. Or kinda like the driver who killed someone with his car claiming that it wasn't his fault because he was drunk at the time. (And if you're an illegal alien in the US, that seems to be a valid defense.)

So should this blockhead continue to hold any position of authority in the US government? 

If Holder had any honor, he'd resign. But there you go.

Save the Republic.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs, R.I.P.

Got to say, I'm not now and never have been a fan of Mac/Apple computers. I don't have an iPad or an iPhone, and don't really want either one. But I still feel compelled to pay a tribute to one of the people who invented the 21st century.

I don't know anything about Steve Jobs. Have heard he was hard-driving and somewhat eccentric -- that is, very individualistic. And I suspect that's only part of what it takes to accomplish what Steve Jobs accomplished.

A man who worked for Xerox's PARC laboratory told me a story about many years ago, two fresh-faced kids touring the facility. PARC, by the way, was Xerox's very high-tech research center. It's closed now, I believe, and Xerox sold the patents and licenses on some of the remaining undeveloped concepts produced there.

At any rate, according to this man's story, these two computer geeks, Jobs and Wozniak, barely beyond their teen years, visited PARC and were given a demonstration of a very primitive graphic interface that employed icons and stuff like that instead of making users go through those long, long lists of DOS files. Xerox had no plans to do anything with it, but it was interesting.

Next thing that happened was the Macintosh, wtih that "user-friendly" interface featuring little cartoons of file folders, spinning hourglasses, and tiny hands to push things around the screen. It was cute. And more than that, Jobs and Wozniak made it useful.

Anyone but me recall that 1984 Super Bowl ad with the woman running into the grim, smoky meeting room... a scene taken from the movie, 1984, complete with Big Brother pontificating to the masses on a huge TV screen. The woman runs up and tosses a hammer into the screen, smashing conformity and introducing the Mac.

Fast forward to about 1997 or so, and I clearly recall writing a brief item on corporate quarterly reports for a business publication. In the last quarter of that year -- a short and apparently very painful three months -- Apple lost $700 million. I couldn't even conceive of it and suspected we wouldn't be hearing much from Apple anymore. The corporate market was using the Windows platform -- the concept of the user-friendly interface borrowed from Apple -- and Macs were rapidly becoming a niche product for graphic artists. The Mac remains the preferred system in the graphic arts. Macs have more power, really, to move big color files around and manipulate images.

So Jobs returns to the company and comes up with the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone. And Bill Gates jokes about, "Gee, I wish I'd thought of that."

It's just amazing to me -- all of it is. I'm older than Steve Jobs, so he was born, grew up, prospered, and passed away all within my lifetime. And he changed the world.

And all without a government subsidy.

The world needs more like him. And we need an America ("the last, best hope of earth") where he or she will be free to dream and to turn the dreams, the what-ifs, the wouldn't-that-be-cools into something useful, beautiful, and profitable -- for everyone.

Save the Republic.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Hey, Durbin, banking ain't free

The so-called "Durbin Fee," because it was the result of legislation introduced and promoted by U.S. Senator Dickhead Durbin (d-for-dummy, IL), has caused Bank of America to charge $5.00 per month for customers who use their debit cards.

Apparently Durbin believed the banks should not make any money by extending the debit card service. However, the banks have to pay third-party businesses to make debit cards functional. So if the banks have to pay for the service and not profit from it, the cost of it goes to the consumer.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, got it?

Durbin and the rest of the socialists (including the more articulate Wall Street Squatters) seem to have this vision of "capitalists" as people who have this closet full of gold bullion or something. And they're hogging it.

Therefore, the feds -- or any "needy person" really -- morally should be able to tap into that huge supply of capital. Or businesses should hire excess workers because "that's the right thing to do."

That's just not the way it works.

Profits -- apparently that huge, unlimited storehouse of gold -- in real life is revenues minus expenses. It's usually calculated as a percentage, and is known as a "profit margin."

Like I made sales of $100.00. My expenses were $90.00. I made a profit of $10.00. That's a 10% profit margin -- which is wa-a-a-a-a-y higher than what most businesses make. And investors, "venture capitalists," like to see a 20% profit margin before they'll sink their money into it. During the dot-com bubbble, a projected 20% profit margin looked possible and sometimes it was. But in most cases, a 20% profit margin is an "in your dreams" kind of thing. Most of the dot-coms failed, you know. At best, they were experimental.

So businesses watch their margins. If sales drop, you have to cut expenses to sustain those margins. You don't want to raise the prices on your products, because that inevitably will slow sales even more. First move is to cut expenses -- either by improving efficiencies, or last-resort, laying off employees. But you don't want to lay off employees because they know your business. Newbies cost a lot of money and usually aren't productive for their first few months or even longer.

In addition, in states like Illinois, employers have to pay fees to cover at least a part of the unemployment checks the state hands out. So the business pays for former employees who are no longer contributing to the business's profits. It's a black hole. A last resort. No business wants to do that.

So there's no warehouse full of unused cash -- there's basically only margins, which are quite fluid and change every day with sales and expense levels.

If you use the law to force businesses to cut their profits, the business loses investors. When they lose investors, they fold. This is particularly true of corporations. No profits or dividends, shareholders sell off their stock, walk away, the corporation folds, or looks around for another business to buy it out.

And no one, not even the feds, can afford to hire people as an act of charity. Employees cost money. A business's profit margins have to be able to support another employee. Or, market demand for your product has to be so hot you need more people to boost production and/or expand sales. Sales cost a lot of money. Support for sales is often the largest expense on the balance sheet. And when you add thousands of dollars onto the cost of an employee -- like through Obamacare -- you're making it much harder for businesses to hire new people.

See how easy that is, Dickie? See how stupid and destructive your blockhead legislation is? See why you're to blame for all the ticked off Bank of America customers?

See, Dickhead, because you don't understand anything about capitalism, you're destroying the whole very delicately balanced free enterprise system. It's like you just threw a rock through the front window. And you're so damn ignorant, you don't even understand that. Go ahead, go squat on Wall Street with the people who share your fantasy vision how the economy is divided into "fat cats" and "pathetic starving workers." Go and organize the non-productive deadbeats. See who you can get to pay any more to support them.

Dickhead Durbin would not be in office except for the dem machine that runs Chicago. However, Ram Emanual, as Mayor of Chicago, is just now trying to raise property taxes, public transportation fares, and has threatened to -- HORROR OF HORRORS! -- lay off city workers. My God, he's imperiling is voter base. Ram Emanual has got himself in a situation where he's been confronted with -- Hey, no warehouse full of cash! Not in the city, not in the city's businesses, not in taxpayer pockets. He's got himself too close to Main Street.

Socialism doesn't work. It's not based on reality. Got that? How many times do you have to hear it? Don't take my word for it. Just look around.

As the nation collapses around them, Durbin and like-minded blockheads believe the solution is to go out and make a bunch of "I am blameless" speeches. Like, "Yeah, I'm an ignorant blockhead, but you just can't help but love me, right? After all, my heart's in the 'right' place."

And you know what, that's not working, either. Not when it takes food off the table.

Save the Republic.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Class warfare in action?

Well, the Wall Street Squatters are still squatting, and apparently 700 or so of them or were arrested over the weekend for sitting down on a bridge in Manhattan and blocking traffic for hours.

One reporter was on the scene, and was asked, "How is it down there?" He answered, "Actually kind of smelly."

Tea Party members dressed up like Ben Franklin and George Washington, apparently people they admire. The Wall Street Squatters dress up like vampires and punk rockers. Is this who they admire?

No one seems to understand what the Wall Street Squatters want, or what their message is. Of several who were interviewed briefly, maybe three out of five parroted an anti-capitalist slogan. Another guy said he was unemployed and decided just to see what was going on. Another guy apparently came for the free accupuncture one of the squatters offered.

What struck me is their specific complaints: no jobs, the economy in the crapper.

You know what? Those are two issues where they agree with the Tea Party.

The difference is that the Wall Street Squatters blame this mess on the financial industry, which has been bought out and hog-tied by the feds.

The Tea Party blames the feds.

So, trying on my Conspiracy Hat -- is this why the Comrade is pursuing all these bullshit economic policies that are designed deliberately to wreck the US economy? So these strange and somehow unkempt and bizarre people will rise up and make the revolution?

Is it working?

How do the Wall Street Squatters get time for all this? Some of them have been camped out on lawn chairs out there for more than a week. They probably do little trips home to check their mail for their Social Security, SSI, unemployment, and Workers' comp payments. I mean, really, who else has the time?

And who do they think are paying their bills?

That would be the White House?

And where does the White House get its money?

Doesn't seem to be getting much anymore -- after hitting free enterprise a few good knocks with the Obamacare and Dudd-Fudd wrecking balls.

But somehow, a goth with pink hair and white face make-up is kind of hard to take seriously as someone prepared to topple the Republic, know what I mean?

Hey, Comrade and Van Jones, this rabble ain't going to accomplish your goals. That was done in the 60s and 70s and it didn't work then. These are not people capable of much but lip service and squatting. They aren't "activists" in the true sense of the word. They aren't "active." They really aren't much like the sans-culottes of the French Revolution, and though a few seemed proud of being arrested for the bridge thing, somehow I don't think they'd stand strong against something like tear gas, let alone bullets.

Nice try, but this is going nowhere.

Save the Republic.