Reflections From a Murky Pond

What would happen if people took a pragmatic approach to AIDS relief in Africa? What if they put aside their preconceptions and applied tactics that took into account what we know of young men’s minds?

Cartoon courtesy of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I do not mean for this post to be offensive, nor do I want anyone to belittle either the impact of HIV / AIDS on the world in general and Africa in specific. For those who believe this comic is in vastly poor taste and think that AIDS is no laughing matter, I refer you to these words:

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

— Mark Twain
Following the Equator

We absolutely must laugh at what causes us fear or sorrow; the only alternatives are rage or despair. Besides – knowing men, a Playstation or Xbox would be an effective means of reducing the spread of infections through sex.

“Trickle-down economics” and “trickle-down theory” are terms of political rhetoric that refer to the policy of providing tax cuts or other benefits to businesses and rich individuals, in the belief that this will indirectly benefit the broad population. Strangely it is believed that Will Rogers of western movie fame first coined the phrase during the Great Depression.

Money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy

— Will Rogers

First there was President Ronald Reagan with his supply-side economic which were labeled Reaganomics. This was the first example of the now classic, post-Keynesian Trickle-Down Economics.

President Ronald Reagan was a strong proponent of Trickle-Down economics, and it was he who brought the term to the notice of the general population.

He believed that reducing taxes on capital gains, corporate income, and higher individual incomes, along with the reduction or elimination of various excise taxes would increase gross domestic product (GD) and that this would benefit the poor.

Despite the clear economics benefits of Reagan’s Trickle-Down Economics, it is generally considered to have been a failed experiment in in macro-economics. While median family income grew and interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency, the income gap between the wealthy and the poor grew and the perceived benefits to the lower income quintiles was far less than expected.

President Reagan forgot to take greed into account.

The wealthy used their new tax breaks and deregulation to increase their wealth greatly, but only caused a tiny fraction of that increase in wealth to trickle down to the average American family. Greed won out.

–~*~–

Now we presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, who wants to increase income taxes on capital gains, corporate income, and higher individual incomes, along with increasing the payroll taxes on both employers and employees in the upper economic quintiles.

He believes this is necessary to provide immediate relief to the poor and middle-class.

Some might choose to describe this as Trickle-Up Economics, others would choose to describe this as Socialism – an intermediate step between Capitalism and Communism. In point of fact – and without the weighted rhetoric of politics – it is Demand-Side Economics as espoused by 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes. Sen. Obama’s economic plan is a return to the economic theories of Pres. Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Sen. Obama’s Trickle-Up Economics or Demand-Side Economics is based on the theory that by directly increasing the capital available to the lower income quintiles greater demand will be  generated for goods and services across all sectors of the economy. This is turn would generate greater supply and increase gross domestic product (GD) and that this in turn would benefit the poor even more.

Sen. Obama is forgetting to to take greed into account.

The wealthy will do what they can to protect their wealth.  Increasing their costs through taxation will lead them to take measures to offset the depredations of their wealth though a variety of methods. None of those methods will benefit America’s poor or middle-class.

1. Corporations will likely reduce or adjust domestic workforces by either increased automation or adjustments in full-time to part-time employee number
2. Corporations will likely move as much of their business and production facilities overseas as they can manage. In this world of Globalism a dramatic increase in domestic production costs will inevitably lead to an equally dramatic increase in “off shoring” of jobs and production.
3. Available capital in the lending markets will likely be reduced since increased income and capital gains taxes will make such business models less lucrative
4. General investments – including 401Ks and pension funds – will taper down do to the increased capital gains taxes. Fund administrators would have a much harder time maximizing the growth of such investment portfolios in  the wake of greater taxation.
5. Corporations will likely increase the basic costs of most goods and services, both to offset their increased tax burdens and to take full advantage of the greater buying power of the poor and middle-class. Inflation never benefits the poor.

Once again, as it did under Pres. Reagan, greed will have one out.

Reagan was an idealist and Obama is an idealist. Both men failed to fully take into account the level of greed in people when they put together their economic policies. The difference between the two lies in the effects of their disparate plans.

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Don’t judge Obama by his actions. Don’t judge Obama by the friends he keeps. Don’t judge Obama by his what he says. Don’t judge Obama because if you do, you’re a racist.

Of course if we can’t judge him by his actions, his friends, or his words then all we would have left is his race. Nice trick that! Remove all legitimate methods of judgment and then call – or let your surrogates call – your detractors racists.

Michelle Obama, wife of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama has drawn a lot of flak for various of her comments during the campaign. She’s a hard-hitting woman of no uncertain opinion and this has caused her to be occasionally reviled for her heartfelt but ill-advised rants and declarations. She does speak truth as she sees it though.

If you can’t run your own house, then you can’t run the White House.

— Michelle Obama

I think that is a very wise observation. If a candidate cannot properly manage and nurture that which is close to them, how can anyone expect them to properly manage and nurture the nation?

Sadly, like all truths Michelle’s wisdom is a two-edged sword that twist in the the hands of its wielder.

If Michelle’s husband can not successfully look after his constituents in Chicago how can anyone trust him to be President of the whole nation? If Barack Obama was willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable of his own constituents to the greed and corruption of his campaign supporters and business partners, how can trust him to be President of the whole nation?

Sen. Obama, talk to your wife; she may well be wiser than you.

This is how the Left and the Obama campaign and its surrogates and shills work. In the quest for the Presidency they seem to be willing to use any and all means – legal, quasi-legal, or outright criminal – to achieve their aims.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.”

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama’s tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama’s Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay’s statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. “Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated.  If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully,” he said.

The attorney general’s office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher’s BMV information through the office’s Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

“We’re trying to pinpoint where it came from,” she said. The investigation could become “criminal in nature,” she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a “test account” assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general’s office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher’s information was not accessed within the attorney general’s office. She declined to provide details. The office’s test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher’s information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.

— Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch

The Obama campaign is reported to have threatened the Jewish groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN with potential loss of their tax exempt status if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden speak at their rally.

In key swing states Obama has set up “Truth Squads” composed of law enforcement officers and high profile prosecutors to intimidate any media outlet that airs or publishes any article critical of Sen. Obama that they – Obama and his Truth Squads – feel is false or misleading.

Obama has attempted to use the US Congress’ Special Prosecutor to attack the entire GOP and the current US administration due to their investigations into the actions of ACORN in key swing states. He has made spurious claims that the ivestigation of voter fraud and voter registrations fraud is somehow related to Congress’s witch hunt over the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

Now it seems that that either the Obama campaign – they deny the allegations – or more likely some of Obama’s supporters have illegally used Ohio state law enforcement data in the attacks against Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe The Plumber.

I find it most disturbing that the illegal searches came from the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency. It’s frightening to think that the Obama supporters might use Joe’s children in their attacks upon him. Was this an attempt to punish Joe the Plumber by having his children removed from his custody? Probably not, but it still should send a chill of fear down all our spines.