Obama Creates Jobs ... in China

President Obama and his merry band of regulators and union allies is doing great things for the economies of third world countries. By chasing United States companies' operations out of the US by excessive, confusing, conflicting and oppressive regulation, President Obama is creating a "global economy" with new job creation in China, India and all over the world.

Everywhere but here, of course.

The latest, though comes not from Obama, but from his progressive tax-and-tax compatriots in the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts (yes, the home state of its former governor, RINO Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney). The Boston Globe reports on a medical device manufacturer cutting jobs "worldwide" but creating 1000 jobs in China:

Yesterday’s move, a day after Boston Scientific disclosed it was investing $150 million and hiring 1,000 people in China, raised fears that the company will gradually shift more work to foreign sites with less government oversight and lower costs than the United States.

"Oversight." It sounds so much less evil than "over-regulation." but over-regulation, it is.

More government, fewer jobs. Like clockwork.

Quote of the Day: Mark Steyn

From Mark Steyn writing for National Review Online:

As Obama made plain in his threat to Gran’ma last week that the August checks might not go out, funding non-productivity is now the principal purpose of the modern state.

Welcome to Obama's America.

Col. Allen West: Obama Class-Warfare Marxist

On July 17, 2011, Col. Allen West (D-FL) said,

The President’s concern is about getting reelected. The President’s concern is that he is an intransigent, liberal, progressive socialist who is also Marxist because of the class warfare rhetoric that he espouses. And I think that when you heard him on Friday and the more he comes out and talks, the more truly out of touch and incompetent he seems.

He has a vision for this country that is anathema to the vision of the founding fathers and our belief in individual responsibility and accountability and our free enterprise system.

I have been criticized for calling President Obama a Marxist. Actually, I have said his understanding of economics is middle school Marxist.

Col. West is obviously correct. President's Obama's class warfare rhetoric is consistent with Marxist rhetoric.

I love it when a politician like Col. West is clear and says exactly what he means. It is rare and refreshing.

Concerned Women of America Speak Out, With Humor: Spenditol Ad

SEIU Exposed As Evil By Its Own Documents

In an internal training manual obtained in the course of litigation discovery, SEIU tells members to make false accusations of against the targeted company of "racism, sexism, exploitation of immigrants, or proposals that would take money out of the community for the benefits of distant stockholder." The training manual exposes all sorts of sordid, unethical and borderline illegal tactics that the union trains its operatives to engage in. Read more here.

Evil? You bet.

What it the legacy media doing to report the scandal? You guessed it. Nothing.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is "Vile, Despicable and Cowardly"

Our three-time Moron of the Day winner Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has been publicly described as "vile, despicable and cowardly" by Col. Allen west, R-FL.

And I thought she was just stupid.

RNC Ad On Obama

I think President Obama is much worse than this ad implies.

President Obama is the Problem: Democrat Stephen Wynn

Stephen Wynn is a Democrat and a Las Vegas businessman, the Wynn Casino for one. Here is his explanation to investors about the problems with Barack Obama:

Well, here's our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas. I know that I could do 10,000 more myself and according to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Convention Bureau, if we hired 10,000 employees, it would create another 20,000 additional jobs for a grand total of 30,000. I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I'm afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States.

You watch television and see what's going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating. And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems -- that keeps using that word redistribution.

Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money.

Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America. You bet. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, "Oh God, don't be attacking Obama." Well, this is Obama's deal, and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest or holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government, and there's no need to soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth.

And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.

I am not sure why anyone would be surprised by this president. As a university student, he fancied himself a Communist. Even if he has moved somewhat closer to capitalism, he is still far to the left of rational economic thought.

Folks like the president think that government regulation, if not ownership or everything, is the answer to all their perceived ills of society. Sure, they think, big government has been a bit of a problem in the past (Soviet purges, the Nazis' final solution), but surely we will get it right this time.

Continual ratcheting of government regulation destroys incentives for businesses to expand. Uncertainty is an serious enemy to business prosperity. Undoing the regulatory ratchet would be a positive and a friend, but even a steady state of frozen regulation would be better than Obamaisn. (Obamaism = "If it creates private jobs, regulate it, so it won't grow.")

Of course with all the new regulations from the Obama administration and Congress, the problem cannot be solved with a freeze. No one knows how the mass of new regulations will be interpreted. So the uncertainty is here to stay without a bunch of repeals.

2012 elections can't come too soon. Impeachment would be quicker, but unfortunately is unlikely.

Scaremonger In Cheif

Here is what President Obama is really saying, when he threatens that social security check might not go on if the debt ceiling is not raised:

I would rather pay my hordes of overpaid bureaucrats than to protect you senior who are struggling to get by on social security.

"Don't Call My Bluff"

President warned the Republicans negotiating the debt ceiling deal, "Don't call my bluff."

Really? When some admits they are bluffing, I say call it!

Fight the Light Bulb Ban: Don't Let This Happen to Us!

Moron of the Day: Energy Secretary Steven Chu

Unbelievable. In speaking about the upcoming ban of inexpensive incandescent bulbs (in favor of the environmentally dangerous CFLs), Energy Secretary Steven Chu defended the government action to remove the choice for Americans on light-bulb efficiency, saying “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.”

So, according to Mr. Chu, it is the job of the Federal government to keep you from spending your own money on what you want to spend it if the Federal government (in its infinite wisdom) thinks it is wasteful.

A hearty congratulations for today's Moron of the Day to Steven Chu.

Free Market Environmentalism

I have advocated for the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency and its supporting legislation. Why? The EPA epitomizes Soviet-style central planning. Its approach to environmental problems ia a form of tyranny that kills jobs and destroys the environment globally by exporting pollution.

In a review of a global warming book, economist Walter Block explains,

Let us make a few heroic assumptions. Anthropogenic global warming, due to greenhouse-gas emissions, is a fact. Sunspots, etc., are not responsible. There is an ideal world temperature, such that man's actions will either exceed it, or fall below it, and that this will be harmful on net balance, not beneficial.

On this basis, Baer et al. consider two approaches to addressing this danger: first, "assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay (wealth) and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, to assign emissions rights on a (possibly modified) equal per capita basis."

But, they ignore a third, which is far more justified than either of those. For, given our assumptions, emitting gas constitutes, in effect, a trespass. And what, pray tell, does "equity" have to say about uninvited border crossings? It is simple: the perpetrators of these property-rights violations, and only the perpetrators, must be brought to the bar of justice. I agree with their emphasis on individuals, not groups, but equity requires that we should ignore ability to pay as a criterion for fines. Rather, the guilty should pay, and not the innocent, just as in the case for ordinary trespass.

The EPA approach is for the relatively innocent to pay, because they can bully the innocent (or, relatively innocent).

Who are the guilty? Third world (sorry, developing? Uh, I'm not sure the current politically correct euphemism) countries, mostly.

The excessive EPA regulations in this country contribute to high production costs. what does a rational company do? Import from cheaper sources abroad. That is how we export our pollution.

Walter Block is an interesting guy.

Stimulus Failed to Stimulate

Can there be any doubt at this juncture that the Porkulus bill passed in early the Obama Administration, 2009, has failed to actually stimulate?

Economists who deal in something other than Paul Krugman-like wishful thinking are not surprised.

I have said it before. Barack Obama has the economic sophistication of a middle school Marxist. He has demonstrated his economic incompetence (and that of his administration) over and over.

We have to dump Obama in 2012. It can't come soon enough.

Woman fined $100 for improper newspaper disposal

Has government run amok?

 Evidence abounds.

Consider that case of the 83 year old woman terrorized and fined ... by a sanitation worker.  For throwing her newspaper in the street trash can.

Read about it here.

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action ... v. Regents of the University of Michigan

In a case that sets the 14th Amendment squarely on its head, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights And Fight For Equality By Any Means Necessary (Bamn) et al. v. Regents of the University of Michigan et al, ___ F. 3d ___ (7/1/2011), the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals holds that a state may not ban discrimination on the basis of race if the ban results in minorities not being able to be the beneficiaries of racial discrimination.

In 2006 the citizens of Michigan voted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, including preferences, by a referendum proposition that read,

(1) The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and any other public college or university, community college, or school district shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.

(2) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

(3) For the purposes of this section “state” includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the state itself, any city, county, any public college, university, or community college, school district, or other political subdivision or governmental instrumentality of or within the State of Michigan not included in sub-section 1.

In a 2 to 1 decision, in bafflingly obtuse language, the majority suggested that the proposition "works as a reallocation of political power or reordering of the political process to place 'special burdens' on racial minorities."

Huh?

How is it possible, logically or practically, that eliminating preferences places special burdens on minorities? The only "burden" is a prohibition upon race-based preferences.

In my view, discrimination on the basis of race is wrong. Period.

In a university admissions policy, for example, there are as fixed number of admissions available. preferring one race necessarily discriminates against another. However the elites may think it benefits society to have racial quotas, from the standpoint of the student refused admission to support another's preference, it is wrong, pure and simple.

In its analysis, the majority said that because the proposition classified on the basis of race, the court had to strictly scrutinize the legislation. The majority had the legal analysis exactly backward. As the dissent pointed out:

“The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.” Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239 (1976). We apply strict scrutiny to those laws that racially classify individuals, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 216 (1995), and intermediate scrutiny to those laws that classify individuals based on gender, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 531 (1996). Racial classifications are subject to strict scrutiny if (1) the law classifies on its face or (2) the law has a discriminatory impact and a discriminatory purpose. See Davis, 426 U.S. at 241. The district court concluded that Proposal 2, which prohibits racial classifications, a fortiori does not classify facially on the basis of race. Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action, 539 F. Supp. 2d at 951. Although the district court did find “sufficient evidence to establish a fact question on the disparate impact part of the test,” it did not find a discriminatory purpose. Id. Indeed, it stated that “the demonstration of a discriminatory purpose . . . dooms [the] conventional equal protection argument.” Id. Furthermore, the district court found the equal protection argument based on gender “even less compelling” due to the less exacting level of scrutiny. Id. at 952. I agree with the conclusions of the district court.

Proposal 2 does not establish a facial racial classification because its text does not draw distinctions on the basis of race; in fact, it prohibits them. Additionally, Proposal 2 does not classify racially on an impact theory because it lacks a discriminatory purpose. “[A]bsent a referendum that facially discriminates racially, or one where although facially neutral, the only possible rationale is racially motivated, a district court cannot inquire into the electorate’s motivations in an equal protection clause context.” Arthur v. Toledo, 782 F.2d 565, 574 (6th Cir. 1986). Thus, no heightened level of scrutiny need be applied to Proposal 2, and under rational basis review, Proposal 2 is easily justifiable. Proposal 2 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause under the conventional analysis.

How can a state law prohibiting racial discrimination, but either placing burdens upon or preferring minorities ever be a race based classification? It can't, except in the Orwellian world of the progressives.

I think the Supreme court will likely take this case for review, because it is so high-profile and so important.

Click on the title of the case for a .pdf of the whole thing.