It's the Regulations, Stupid

More data for my assertion that it's not interest rates and taxes that are killing us ...

On Tuesday, my dad and I stopped by a place where you buy soil in bulk. Topsoil, ground bark, gravel, they had it all, along with a single dump truck they used to deliver large orders to big projects. The owner told us that the truck was a 2001 model. The EPA had recently told him that the truck needed to have a completely new engine because the current engine's emissions were too great. The cost of replacing the engine was going to be $70,000.

EPA regulations, not high interest rates or onerous taxes, were going to cost him $70,000 to replace a perfectly good engine on a perfectly good truck. The guy sells dirt for a living. Where's he going to get $70,000? Meanwhile, in China and India, hundreds of thousands of far dirtier engines were pouring emissions into our common atmosphere.

The EPA was going to force him to spend $70,000 in exchange for absolutely nothing.

Ben Bernanke is going to print $600B to save the economy. The Republicans are going to give you a couple hundred dollars in tax breaks to save the economy. God only knows what Barack Obama thinks he's doing to save the economy. Meanwhile, a guy who sells dirt was getting a pointless $70,000 engine replacement shoved down his throat by a bureaucracy that didn't even know he existed.

You know all those entitlements we love? Who's going to pay them when this guy goes out of business?

We'd all be better off if this was replaced with a rickshaw. Green jobs at good wages!

Cheezburger of the Day

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Video of the Day

Dig this.

Digital Tutors

I recently came across a site called Digital Tutors that offers instructional videos for all kinds of Creative Suite products, general graphic design and color theory and 3D drawing and design packages. I love it. You have to pay for it, but if you're picking up this stuff for the first time or are trying to learn some more sophisticated tricks, it's worth the investment.

Link of the Day

If you haven't read the excellent The Economic Incompetence of the Political Class yet, you should. Here's a tidbit.

In the U.S. at least, the looming debt crisis among states and municipalities also reflects a lack of diligence on the part of the citizenry. This can be attributed in part to a naïve assumption by the electorate that those in government, freed from the profit motive, could be trusted to do what was "right" for the community as a whole.

Instead, what we now can see is that elected officials, following a power motive, can be as greedy and irresponsible as anyone in the private sector. In many cases, officials from both parties have been captured by powerful interests, including public sector unions and recipients of transfer payments. As a consequence, they have willfully committed current and future taxpayer money to benefit those with political power at the expense of the community as a whole.

Emphasis mine, placed there to reinforce the notion that the election of Jerry Brown will be the high water mark for progressives and liberals. The notion in italics is at the heart of the philosophy that lead us to endlessly grow the size and scope of government.

More and more and more and more leads to a POP!

I Blame the Pie

After letting our Maximum Leader out for her nighttime snack and stroll, I, too, had a late-night snack last night and then slept like a baby until 6:30. There was no time to blog when I got up.

It's all the pie's fault. It was down there in the kitchen, calling to me. I'm a victim of the oppression of Baker-Americans.

Surprised by Bernanke

I don't think I did a good job of describing my surprise at what Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said on 60 Minutes in my previous post, so here goes another try.

I was seriously shocked by his comments. I had always had an image of the Fed chairman being this fiscal Solomon, stroking his beard and tut-tutting at the economic novices in Congress and the Administration, regardless of the era. Back in the day, Paul Volker would utter words of warning about overspending against Republican and Democrat alike. Instead, Ben Bernanke turns out to be a true believer in the power of the state to manage the economy.

Instead of claiming that America's chickens are coming home to roost, as a certain racist, lunatic mentor of Barack Obama might say, he showed that he's one with the crew that thinks that our problems can be solved with government spending and Fed-set interest rates. Ben could have gone before Congress and refused to print the money or offered to print the money with strings attached. Instead, he didn't offer a peep of warning or advice to a gang whose new regulations* have made the business environment uncertain for all.

Ben Bernanke has reduced the Fed to the boiler room crew on a steamship. They feed the government, but have no control over the direction taken. I'm totally blown away by his (utter capitulation to or complete belief in) the government.

Shovel more money into the government! Captain Obama and First Mate Pelosi know what they're doing!
* - Don't think that the thousands of pages of laws that this group has passed is the end of it. Tens of thousands of pages of regulations interpreting these laws will be the real result. Want to hire someone? You have no idea at all what that will cost you.

Link of the Day

It's not political. It's not debt pr0n. It's not snarky. It's just clever, beautiful and wondrous.

Click here.

What Is Ben Bernanke Investing In?

Last night, Fed chairman Bernanke went on 60 Minutes and had this to say:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the economy is barely expanding at a sustainable pace and that it’s possible the Fed may expand bond purchases beyond the $600 billion announced last month to spur growth.

“We’re not very far from the level where the economy is not self-sustaining,” Bernanke said in an interview broadcast yesterday by CBS Corp.’s “60 Minutes” program. “It’s very close to the border. It takes about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment stable and that’s about what we’re getting.”

When I buy shares or corporate bonds of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), I'm investing in a company that supports all phases of American agriculture. I invest in them because I think they're going to grow by creating more of what people want and need and will pay for. Implicitly, I'm saying that ADM will create economic growth. ADM does so because their managers want to make a higher profit. When they make more profit, they can expand and hire more people to make still more profit.

When Ben invests his $600B in Federal debt, he's investing in an organization that is not motivated to produce profit or build things that people want and need and are willing to pay for. Why does he think this is going to lead to growth?

In simpler terms, if you wanted economic growth, would you put money into the hands of Congress and the President or would you put it in the hands of ADM?

If you don't like ADM, how about DOW? Watch this Kiwi commercial and ask yourself how that $600B given to the government will lead to more growth than this.

Help Support a Friend when You Shop at Amazon

Our Holy Scribe could use some help. He and I have corrresponded for some time on the blogs and elsewhere and I know him for a brave and hard working fellow.

Please click, read and see what you can do. It will cost you nothing at all and will help out someone who needs it.

The Inner Sanctum of the Catican

My wife, a devoted follower of our Maximum Leader, recently bought this charming one bedroom apartment for her which we have installed in the Catican.


It's been pretty cold in the Catican lately, so this snug little abode, with an additional plush blanket, keeps our Maximum Leader quite toasty. Lately she's been sleeping inside with us until about 1 AM when she wakes up and wants to go outside. That means she's outside during the coldest part of the night, so we sleep sounder knowing she's got a warm, soft place to snooze once her night time explorations are over.

Aslan Calls for a Jihad!

... and none of us would ever have known this had Liam Neeson not let us in on the secret.

Ahead of the release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader next Thursday, Neeson said: ‘Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

‘That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.’

A mentor figure? Hey, wait a minute! Maybe Aslan is just some schlub working on the Head Start program for HHS.

Here, Aslan gets the kids up so they can all get a good breakfast through a government meals program before heading off to a seminar on using condoms.
Update: There's something tragic about this story. By all accounts, Liam Neeson is a swell guy. It's like he's been marinated for so long in the fetid stew of multiculturalism that reflexively he comes out and says stuff like this. C. S. Lewis was an unapologetic Christian. Aslan is a Christ figure and that's that. There's no doubt that Liam was trying to say something nice and inclusive, but it's just wrong.

The Scratching Post Challenge

Don Surber has issued The Surber Challenge suggesting a way to make a debating point with those who want to raise taxes.

Why don’t we skinflint conservatives with our miserly ways and narrow minds write a check to the Treasury and show that even though we oppose higher taxes, we are willing to — as patriotic and loyal Americans — voluntarily bail out our national government?

Sure.

While liberals talk, conservatives act.

So I wrote a check for a hundred bucks today to United States Treasury and mailed it to:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

That is a $100 donation that is not tax-deductible.

This is my protest against being required to pay higher taxes.

Readers can do the same. Write a check for $10 because this is not a contest to top one another, but rather an odd protest against the self-righteous hypocrisy of Warren Buffett and Fareed Zakaria and all the others who complain they are not taxed “enough” but do nothing — absolutely nothing — to increase their taxes voluntarily.

I think I've got a better one. Almost all of the people suggesting that the rich should pay more taxes are not rich. They know not of what they speak. Hence, this proposal:

Participants should first get rich and then pay more taxes.

What's the point of sending $10 in to the Treasury? Even if we all did it, that would only be $3.5B. We'd blow through that in a matter of hours. No, what we need is the rich to pay their fair share.

You first.

Mr. William H. Weideman is the Chief Financial Officer of Dow Chemicals. He makes $920K a year. You go get his job, or an equivalent, and then pay more in taxes. Start a blog and let us know how it goes. Provide the leadership in financial sacrifice that America so desperately needs.

$10? Bah! If you're going to set an example, make it a meaningful one.

Because Friday is the Day for Catblogging

We're working on the Catican PC again, this time with some help from our Maximum Leader.

Cheezburger of the Day

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For Jeff

Our Maximum Leader, contented.

Link of the Day

Click. Watch.

The End Is Not Near

As the European Debt Crisis unfolds and talk swirls about a breakup of the EU*, it's comforting to note that this time the fiscal trainwreck won't lead to war and destruction. Unlike the 1930s when the statists were publishing tracts claiming that the Slavs were racially inferior to the Aryans or the proletariat was best served by slaughtering the bourgeoise, these days all they worry about is making sure the spigot of social spending and benefits doesn't get turned off. No one is beefing up their armies, either.

Things will change dramatically, but there won't be war and devastation. The potential participants don't have the motive or opportunity.

* - Dittos for the American Debt Crisis and the California Debt Crisis.

Groveling as Leadership

GOP leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell got out their box of crayons and wrote an editorial for the Washington Post this week. Allow me to give you the highlights.

When congressional leaders of both parties meet at the White House today, all of us will have an opportunity to show the American people that we got the message of the elections earlier this month.

Republicans heard the voters loud and clear...focus on the priorities of the American people...he conceded that "the overwhelming message" he heard from the voters...they want both parties to work together...the message voters have been delivering for more than a year....We can work together...It's time to choose...It's time to get serious...Americans have been asking...work together on common-sense...Time is running out...the things we know Americans want...Together, we can focus...the things Americans want...time to do the right thing.

If you had just landed in Washington DC from the planet Gormaria* and you heard this, would you think these two had any ideas in their heads at all? It's like they're begging to be puppets. There's listening to the voters and then there's abject abasement. In theory, we hire these guys because they know how to run the government better than we do. If all they're going to do is follow the polls, we could have done their jobs ourselves.

Oh Most Almighty and Noble Voters, to hear you is to obey!
* - If I had just landed in Washington DC from Gormaria, I'd bang my GPS** unit against my dashboard, reset my coordinates and take off for Maui. Washington DC?!? Are you crazy?

** - GPS: Galactic Positioning System

A Tiny Bit More on Wikileaks

The Wikileaks fiasco underscores how hard it is for a president to come back from poor approval ratings. Fate seems far more likely to deal you an embarassing setback than a chance for redemption. In this case, a fellow about 20 levels removed from Obama has made him look like a nitwit.