Posted on 01/15/2012 6:26:52 AM PST by Kaslin
Lon wrote: Ransom is right, if you look at the official White House pictures of the function, it is clear that the White House was trying to keep this matter secret. It seems obvious that as the stars posed for their publicity photos they were thinking how clever it was that this was going to be kept a secret. in response to The Alice-in-Wonderland President
Dear Lon,
OK. Lets get this straight: The White House didnt seek to keep this secret, even though they had discussions about keeping it secret. Yet it remained secret until the revelations in Kantors book despite the White House not trying to keep it secret. The secrecy happened just by coincidence?
Obama ought to go by the name Mr. Coincidental, because everything that happens on his watch you all defend by acting like its just a coincidence.
The worst economic recovery since the Great Depression and Obamas president: Thats just a coincidence.
Obama puts billion of taxpayer money into loan programs for green companies that just coincidentally are tied to his biggest financial supporters.
Every time a financial crisis happens, Obama pals Buffett or Soros just coincidentally happen to be around to buy preferred stock or some other investment thats backed up by government credit.
The ATF walks guns to violent Mexican criminals with no follow through, coincidentally when the ATF and the Obama administration are pushing for scrapping the 2nd Amendment.
Ill let the readers take it from here and list all the other coincidences that have happened under Obama.
MsAllison wrote: It's adorable the way John Ransom believes this crap of Kantor's. Kantor interviewed the Obamas once, decided that there was tension between them and that might make a juicy book and then spoke to WH staff people to get their opinions and then fabricated a novel in which Mrs. Obama recklessly spends "The Taxpayers' Money" on her personal pleasures. in response to The Alice-in-Wonderland President
Dear Allison,
Liberals have called me a lot of things, but never have I been called adorable by them.
But thanks, my wife agrees with you 100 percent- on the adorable part.
On the rest of it, she thinks youre nuts, in a real, clinical and medically certifiable way.
Kantors liberal pedigree is impeccable. Columbia, Hahvahd, Slate, New York Times. Shes been covering Obama and Michelle for quite some time.
But what really tells me she is on the mark- besides the fact that everything we learned from her book is consistent with what we see in Obamas presidency- is that the Obama folks have been out doing the full court press to rebut her.
I never pick on Michelle Obama because I think generally its cheap to drag someones family into political slugfests. But Ill make an exception here because Michelle injected herself into the fight.
In response to Kantors book Michelle did a puff interview saying that she was tired of being depicted as an angry black woman. Well heres an idea for you then Michelle: Stop acting like an angry black woman. And Mr. President, if you are truly concerned with the deficit, then stop spending money the country doesnt have. Or heres a novel idea: Present a balanced budget or a budget that will get one (1) vote.
Because we know already that at least part of the book is true that Obama claims is fabricated. Former press secretary Robert Gibbs says that he apologized to Michelle for an incident that the White House says never happened.
Its like I wrote in the original story: It only looks bad if you get caught, I guess.
Caught.
Truth01 wrote: Ransom said: Obamas policies have sought to provide short-term, dependent-creating panaceas for declining employment rather than long-term employment opportunities. What is being done are stop gap measures they are not intended to be long term. It is an attempt to buy time until the economy gains traction. Unfortunately I have not heard one idea from the Republican side that is any better. in response to Obama Cant See Unemployed from Marthas Vineyard
Dear Comrade 01,
Stop gap measures dont work. They just increase dependency. The solution isnt more unemployment benefits, but more jobs. You do that by getting out of the way and letting the economy do its proper job.
Heres one GOP solution that had bipartisan support and which the president is ducking for political reasons only: Approve the XL Keystone Pipeline.
The idea that the pipeline is a threat to water in Nebraska is a stalling tactic only. It ignores the fact that in Nebraska alone there are already 20,570 miles of pipeline and XL would add about 400 more miles.
From the US Department of Transportation: The energy transportation network of the United States consists of over 2.5 million miles of pipelines. That's enough to circle the earth about 100 times. These pipelines are operated by approximately 3,000 companies, large and small. The number of pipeline incidents is going down, not up, if you dont count the Obama administrations disastrous record on pipeline safety.
Source: Allegro Energy Group, 2001
Note in the graph above the red line with the marker that says Platte. Thats the same Sandhills area where the XL Keystone Pipeline is proposed to go through Nebraska.
Weve been operating pipelines in the country- including the Sandhills- for decades without degrading the environment.
Kathy18 wrote: Love your columns John. The only thing I would add is that I personally don't like being laid off and am not one of those who would vote for him because I get unemployment benefits. I will go out and campaign for whoever gets the Republican nomination. In my long life I have never been without work for so long and Obummer's policies are just keeping the destruction in place. in response to Obama Cant See Unemployed from Marthas Vineyard
Dear Kathy,
Of course you want to work. Conservatives understand that Americans have no animus against work. You wont find a harder working country than the USA.
In the 1970s when the welfare state dominated our economy, full employment was considered by economists to be around 7 percent. There was no way our economy could provide jobs for that last 7 percent economists told us.
Then Ronald Reagan was elected and we started to roll back regulations on business and started to rein in the welfare state. By 2000, unemployment bottomed out at 3.8 percent, a number that economists had told us two decades previously was impossible.
Thats between 4-5 million extra people in the workforce contributing to GDP.
So, when Democrats talk about income inequality, they shouldnt forget to add in the 4-5 million people who will be permanently unemployed if they keep running things their way. Dont forget the $5.5 trillion that the economy wont produce in GDP over ten years if the Democrats switch us back to a welfare state.
Dont worry though. Things will improve as the election gets closer.
Sharty wrote: For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire. The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks. in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science
Dear Sharty,
Pretty thin circumstantial evidence as admitted by the researchers of an old report
The worst that can be said on the basis of the report you cited is that industry used faulty casings- and even thats not certain.
And by the way, there are legal remedies in place for homeowners who think their water has been contaminated by drilling. Those remedies will probably suffice to make drillers act responsibly.
But as the British geologists have said, the risks of contamination of ground water arent that widespread.
You want to live in a world where there is zero risk. I think there is an acceptable level of risk for most things. You want to cite the exceptions and pretend like they are the standard rule.
There were a dozen train accidents in the US this year with at least 16 fatalities. Over the last 3 years there were only 9 serious incidents involving 175,000 miles of hazardous liquid pipelines with 7 fatalities, yet you probably still want the government to build high speed trains while damning another 1700 miles of pipeline.
Remember at Love Canal it wasnt the chemical company, but the local school board that acted irresponsibly by using land that they knew was contaminated by toxic chemicals. The rest of us dont get off as cheaply as the government does when you cede power to them over our lives based on incomplete, biased and shoddy science.
David4 wrote: Documented goof in the article: Five of six Nobel committees are in Sweden, not Norway. Only the Peace Prize committee is in Norway. The goof doesn't change the effect of the article, but it is still a goof. in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science
Dear David,
You are correct. It should have read Peer-review for such efforts have widely consisted of 1) Approval by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which is controlled by the Labour and Socialist parties of Norway (really)
It seems the Peace Prize Committee is the one that we all have a problem with.
Unrealistic wrote: A new question, are we shrinking the earth by deflating it? We know oil and natural gas are pressurized, if one thinks of the earth as a balloon and relieves said pressure with say a syringe is not the whole reduced by the removal of internal volume? in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science
Dear Unrealistic,
This is probably a good question for Rep. Hank Johnson who did that bang-up work on the question of whether the island of Guam was going to capsize if too many people rushed to the edge of the island too quickly.
Quiet Reason wrote: So, Mr. Ransom, lets look at the data. Could you please review the following data sets and respond? in response to Scientists Discover Gassy Liberal Pseudo-Science
Dear Quiet,
No, I cant. Weve already had this discussion many times. The article wasnt about your goofy theories.
Mac287 wrote: Fortunately, Mr. Ransom you don't get to pick who leaves the White House. in response to Wrong Chicago Guy Resigns from White House
Dear Comrade 287,
Yes. In fact, I DO get to pick who leaves the White House. And so do you.
I also got to pick who went to the US House of Representatives and to the US Senate. I admit we have more work to do there, but I take a great deal of pride that we kicked the liberals out of the House, in part because it probably just burns you.
Uncle America wrote: John, you forgot to mention that Bill Daley isn't leaving but is going to be heading the Obama campaign. A senior Obama campaign aide told CNN on Monday that Daley will serve as one of the co-chairs for Obama's re-election campaign. in response to Wrong Chicago Guy Resigns from White House
Dear Uncle,
Just a fig leaf, my friend.
Kirk92 wrote: After reading all of these comments I have to ask, am I on the "Daily Kos"? What is all of this class envy doing on TH? Hey, businesses go out of business. Someone got to break them up. Vultures are as necessary in the free market as they are in the desert. I feel like I'm on a board with a bunch of Flea Party trolls. in response to Mitt: All American Vulture Capitalist
Dear Comrade 92,
No class envy here.
I worked in private equity. I once did a hostile takeover of a bank that was in trouble. I know how companies like Bain work. And I have no problem with it.
But while it doesnt automatically disqualify Mitt for my vote, it doesnt particularly qualify him either.
Obama, the coziest of all with Wall Street, is going to run a The Rest of Us versus Wall Street campaign.
You see, I'm in favor of free market capitalism, which, judging by Mitt's record, he is not. Thats why I think his candidacy is problematic.
You might have noticed that the American people are kind of sick of the cozy relationship that Wall Street has with Washington regardless of who is in power.
Do you really think that after TARP, MF Global, Solyndra, etc. that the country is looking to be saved by an investment banker with Romneys public policy background? Or that Wall Street needs to be saved by more legislation honchoed by a private equity guy?
Why not just nominate Warren Buffet or George Soros to run the country? Isnt Mitt the same kind of banking technocrat that Europe has running the show now?
You assume that just because Romney was an investment banker that somehow he's a free market guy.
He's not. Mitt Romney is purely and simply what we know him to be: A big government opportunist.
Does a free market guy craft the first American socialized medicine program?
No. He doesnt.
It all goes to electability. And the Bain background combined with Mitts lack of respect for free markets in public policy punctures the electability myth surrounding Mitt, I fear.I hope Im not right about that because it looks like hes going to be the guy.
bump
mark
“Liberal Science: Oil Extraction Could Cause the Globe to Deflate”
That must be from the Congressman Hank Johnson school of thought:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg
So how do you feel about Newt’s support a whole federal agency to “incentivize” things like flex fuel vehicles?
Who says liberals don’t have a sense of humor?
Beat me to it.
No, the article beat both of you to it. Johnson is mentioned.
This is about as bad as Congressman Hank Johnson’s theory that if more soldiers landed on Guam, the island would tip over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg
It’s obvious to everyone that private equity serves a purpose in a free-marketthat doesn’t mean Romney was an upstanding exemplar of the free-market.
Private equity itself has never been the issue. But go on being a useful dupe of the media if you’d like to believe it.
Peer reviewed? Like most of the AGW "research" papers of the last 20 years? Pure rubbish that is similar to propaganda.
There are many locations in the US that have enough natural gas dissolved in ground water that one can light a match to the kitchen faucet. Surface natural gas is just another natural phenomenon, like oil being pushed out of ocean seeps and appearing as tar balls on the beach.
Don't blame an energy company that just started drilling in an area, and neglected to pay a renter part of the drilling rights money. Blame the property owner for being too stupid to get a clean source of water.
1) Romney's vaunted "private sector experience", is of a particular kind (private equity management, not 'venture capitalism') that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election. Nobody's asserting that Bain Capital's actions were necessarily illegitimate nor unlawful, but it's obvious that Romney was no white knight of heroic, entrepreneurial capitalism.See Selling out capitalism in the defense of Romney and Bain.
2) Questions on business ethics are legitimate inquiries that one should have to answer for, especially if they're running for public officethese are not attacks on capitalism, and it's completely goofy that some are construing it that way. Those advocating a "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" attitude towards private enterprise activity, aren't doing capitalism any favorsrather, they're ironically validating the Left's destructive sophistry against capitalism.
"Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but "efficiency maximizing" transactions whose only goal is the "maximization" of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible) operations as quickly as possible in the goal of maximizing short-term returns. We wish him luck in his endeavor."Also note that Romney relied on corporate welfare. Go ahead, take a walk down the list here:
A comparison of the 1999 Bain portfolio obtained by the Los Angeles Times to the information in the Subsidy Tracker database my colleagues and I at Good Jobs First created (as well as other sources), yields examples such as the following:
Steel Dynamics Inc. In 1994 this company, among whose financial backers at the time was Bain, got a $77 million subsidy packageincluding grants, property tax abatements, tax credits and reimbursement for training costsfor its steel mill in DeKalb County, Indiana (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 23, 1994).
GS Industries. In 1996 American Iron Reduction LLC, a joint venture of GS Industries (which had been taken private by Bain in 1993) and Birmingham Steel, sought some $20 million in tax breaks in connection with its plan to build a plant in Louisianas St. James Parish (Baton Rouge Advocate, April 6, 1996). As the United Steelworkers union noted recently, GS Industries later applied for a federal loan guarantee, but before the deal could be implemented the company went bankrupt.
Sealy. A year after the 1997 buyout of this leading mattress company by Bain and other private equity firms, Sealy received $600,000 from state and local authorities in North Carolina to move its corporate offices, a research center and a manufacturing plant from Ohio (Greensboro News & Record, March 31, 1998). In 2004 Bain and its partners sold Sealy to another private equity group.
GT Bicycles. In 1997 GT, then owned by Bain and other investors, decided to move its manufacturing operations to an enterprise zone in Santa Ana, California. Being in the zone gave the company, which was later purchased by Schwinn, special tax credits relating to hiring and the purchase of equipment (Orange County Register, July 9, 1999).
"Bain Capital invested in many businesses," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a written statement. "While not every business was successful, the firm had an excellent overall track record and created jobs with well-known companies like Staples, Dominos Pizza and Sports Authority.""Corporate welfare???" Talk about taking the words straight out of Obama's, Pelosi's, MSNBC's mouths. Wow! You call yourself a conservative and you're talking about "corporate welfare?" LOL!!! Go back to DU.
Bain showed a remarkable knack for turning a profit. A prospectus from the year 2000 obtained by the Los Angeles Times shows that the buyout firm delivered an average annual return on investment of 88 percent between its founding in 1984 and the end of 1999.
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet
Launched as a start-up at a time when many American steel mills were foundering, Steel Dynamics is the fifth-largest producer of carbon steel products in the country, generating $6.3 billion in revenue in 2010.Here's a video about this for those too lazy to read.
Government support was a key ingredient to getting it off the ground.
When local officials in DeKalb County learned that three veteran steel mill executives were starting the company in 1993 and looking for a home for their new mini-mill, they pulled out all the stops. "These people don't just drive by and choose accidentally to be your neighbor," said Jack Bercaw, a Butler businessman who was co-chairman of the recruitment drive.
The county promised $23.4 million in property tax abatements and tax increment finance bonds, as well as a new income tax to generate economic development funds. The latter was required by the state, which shelled out another $13.6 million in tax credits, energy grants, workforce training and funds for roads.
A new quarter-percent tax on DeKalb County residents financed infrastructure improvements such as roads and railroad exchanges that benefited Steel Dynamics, Bercaw said. The county also created a new redevelopment commission and redevelopment authority to oversee the activity.
Steel Dynamics executives did not respond to requests for comment. But in a 1994 interview with a trade journal, then-Chief Executive Keith Busse said the $4.4 million the company initially received in state tax credits, in particular, helped persuade Steel Dynamics to locate in Indiana. Busse told a business panel that same year, however, that he was opposed to the new income tax levied by DeKalb County, according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
David Stickler, an investor and advisor specializing in the steel industry who engineered the original financing package that launched Steel Dynamics, said the $37 million in grants and subsidies was not only a financial boost, but also helped persuade larger lenders to sign on. "What I've found is that the senior lending banks, especially lenders from overseas, take great comfort in the fact that the local and state government entities are showing a willingness to partner on the project," Stickler said.
Yes, I’m Libertarian inclined. I don’t see anything objectionable about making the government as small and irrelevant as possible in people’s lives
How do you know that ‘corporate welfare’ came from the Left? I’d like to see evidence of that. Though regardless of who championed it first, there’s nothing objectionable about those on the Right being opposed to government picking winners and losersi.e., backdoor socialism.
Further, whether that government skewing of the markets comes from the Federal, State, or Local levels, is only a difference of scale, not a fundamental difference of kind. That is, whether it’s the state government of CA meddling with and rigging the system, or the federal government in D.C. meddling with and rigging the systemboth constitute interference with a free-market economy, and ought to be opposed.
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