Wilkow Majority Content Letter

Content – Aug 26, 2011

Admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:38:53 +0000

The Content

August 26, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

The slow disappearance of the American working man

The wrong budget analogy

Obama's got plenty of options to right the economy

The constitutional populist realignment of 2012

Huntsman says if elected he would call on wealthy to 'sacrifice'

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."

-Frederic Bastiat

The slow disappearance of the American working man

Goodbye workin' man

As President Barack Obama puts together a new jobs plan to be revealed shortly after Labor Day, he is up against a powerful force, long in the making, that has gone virtually unnoticed in the debate over how to put people back to work: Employers are increasingly giving up on the American man.

If that sounds bleak, it's because it is. The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. For decades the impact of this fact was softened in many families by the increasing number of women who went to work and took up the slack. More recently, the housing bubble helped to mask it by boosting the male-dominated construction trades, which employed millions. When real estate ultimately crashed, so did the prospects for many men. The portion of men holding a job-any job, full- or part-time-fell to 63.5 percent in July-hovering stubbornly near the low point of 63.3 percent it reached in December 2009. These are the lowest numbers in statistics going back to 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs, a barely noticeable improvement from its low point last year-and still well below the depths of the 1982-83 recession, when employment among prime-age men never dropped below 85 percent. To put those numbers in perspective, consider that in 1969, 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

The wrong budget analogy

More twaddle

Washington's renewed obsession with government budget deficits has become a major obstacle to dealing with the U.S. unemployment crisis. At the root of this misplaced focus are widespread misconceptions about the role of deficits in the economy.

The fact that high unemployment and budget deficits are occurring at the same time has generated confusion about the real sources of the slump. The increased deficit is a consequence, not a cause, of the downturn. When economic activity falls, so does tax revenue. Some categories of government spending, such as unemployment benefits, automatically rise during a recession. This contributes to a higher deficit.

Click here to read the full article at the Los Angeles Times

Obama's got plenty of options to right the economy- He's just got to fight for them

Even more twaddle

Here's the policy reality facing the president: The economy is stuck in the mud and the American people are losing faith that policy makers can do anything about it. As long as GDP growth is persistently below trend-trend being around 2.5 percent-the unemployment rate won't be going anywhere good anytime soon. Paychecks, meanwhile, are declining in real terms, so we're stuck in a cycle where the weak job market hurts household budgets, which trims consumption, which discourages investors.

The only games in town are fiscal or monetary stimulus-there, I said the 's' word-but the president is boxed in, it is said, by three forces: First, he's got no job-creation bullets left; second, even if he did, and American people don't believe the government can help on the jobs front (a pathetic 26 percent have confidence in Washington's ability to solve economic problems); and, third, Republicans in Congress will block any idea he proposes anyway. Thankfully, none of these challenges are as insurmountable as they might seem, and pushing relentlessly to overcome them is the president's best, and only, chance to change the fundamental direction of the debate, find his footing, and create some momentum for the economy and for himself.

Click here to read the full article at the New Republic

The constitutional populist realignment of 2012

Progressive elite don't understand currency

How to create tens of millions of jobs, good jobs? Much hinges on the answer to this question.

Long gone are the golden Reagan-Clinton years that saw almost 40 million new positions created. In the decade since Clinton left office America created a paltry 3 million under George W. Bush, and Barack Obama recently was scored as having the worst job creation for a first period in office of any president since 1890, excepting Hoover.

Click here to read the full article at Forbes

Huntsman says if elected he would call on wealthy to 'sacrifice'

Good luck getting the nomination now

In an interview airing Thursday on PBS's "Newshour," Republican presidential contender and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said, if elected, he would consider asking the richest Americans to "sacrifice."

"As president, I wouldn't hesitate to call on a sacrifice from all of our people, even those at the very highest end of the income spectrum," Huntsman said.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

About The Wilkow Majority

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The Wilkow Majority
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New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 25, 2011

Admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:34:33 +0000

The Content

August 25, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

American kids go hungry

Black dem faces tough race for Miss governor

Would you donate to Uncle Sam? The government has received $3M in gifts this year

Majority of NJ voters say Obama doesn't deserve reelection

Labor chief: Obama needs to focus on job growth, not cutting deficit

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object."

-Patrick Henry

American kids go hungry

49% of children born on WIC

In high school, Katherine Foronda trained herself not to feel hungry until after the school day had ended. She wasn't watching her weight or worrying about boys seeing her eat. She just didn't have any food to eat or any money to buy it.

"I thought, if I wasn't hungry during class I'd be able to actually focus on what we were learning,'' said Foronda, now 19.

Click here to read the full article at ABC News

Black dem faces tough race for Miss governor

Writer only sees black and white

After making history this week as the first black candidate to win a major-party nomination for Mississippi governor, Democrat Johnny DuPree now faces the tough reality of trying to win a general election against a better-known, better-funded GOP candidate in a strongly Republican state.

DuPree, the mayor of Mississippi's third-largest city, Hattiesburg, said he's not daunted because he has usually been outspent in campaigns. He said he plans to continue running a race-neutral campaign focused on jobs and education.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Would you donate to Uncle Sam? The government has received $3M in gifts this year

Most libs wouldn't

When billionaire Warren Buffett wrote an opinion article in The New York Times this month that called for higher taxes on the wealthy, his proposal was met with a roar from several conservative pundits, who wondered why Buffett didn't just donate his billions to the government.

"If the government's purposes are so vital, why doesn't he simply give the money to the IRS?" an editorial in the Wall Street Journal asked. "If he's worried about being undertaxed, we'd suggest he simply write a big check to Uncle Sam and go back to his day job of picking investments."

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Majority of NJ voters say Obama doesn't deserve reelection

Yes, New Jersey

The majority of voters in New Jersey say President Obama does not deserve a second term, according to a new Rutgers poll.

Only 43 percent of New Jersey voters in the poll said Obama deserves to be reelected, while 47 percent said he deserves to be voted out of office.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

Labor chief: Obama needs to focus on job growth, not cutting deficit

AFLO-CIO doesn't give a damn

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Thursday that President Obama needs to do what is necessary to boost the struggling economy and not give into Republican demands to cut government spending.

Speaking to reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, Trumka said Washington's obsession with the national deficit could lead to a second recession. The White House needs to consider substantial measures to fix the lagging job market and not fall into a Republican-laid trap of focusing solely on paring down the nation's debt, he said.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 24, 2011

Admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:26:12 +0000

The Content

August 24, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

Beware the Tea Party, Jesse Jackson, Frederica Wilson and black democrats say at jobs meeting

AFL-CIO seeks to boost clout with super PAC

CBO projects unemployment above 8 percent until 2014

Quick Links

Maxine Waters tells Tea Part to 'go to hell'

Frederica Wilson calls Tea Party the enemy

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong."

-Calvin Coolidge

Beware the Tea Party, Jesse Jackson, Frederica Wilson and black democrats say at jobs meeting

Jackson compares us to pro-slavery activists

Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus are in Miami Tuesday to host a jobs fair, part of their five-city tour to draw attention to high unemployment, particularly in the black community.

But at a town-hall style meeting the members held Monday night, some of the most heated talk centered not on jobs but on the tea party.

Click here to read the full article at the Miami Herald

AFL-CIO seeks to boost clout with super PAC

Let's see what kind of people they support

The AFL-CIO hopes to boost its clout by launching a new political action committee that could raise unlimited amounts of money, part of the federation's goal of building a year-round political organizing structure.

Forming a so-called "super labor PAC" would allow the labor federation to raise money from sympathetic donors both inside and outside union membership and mobilize support beyond its traditional base, instead of ramping up political activities each election cycle.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

CBO projects unemployment above 8 percent until 2014

Obama promised this would never happen

Economic growth in the United States is expected to remain weak for several years and unemployment will likely stay above 8 percent for another three years, the head of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

In a blog post accompanying the agency's latest estimates of the U.S. budget situation, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said the economy could be in for a prolonged downturn, exacerbated by recent turmoil in financial markets.

Click here to read the full article at CBS News

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

Content – Aug 23, 2011

Admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:25:22 +0000

The Content

August 23, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

USA becomes food stamp nation but is it sustainable

Obama's claim that GOP is holding up trade deals

GOP may OK tax increase that Obama hopes to block

Morgan Stanley at brink got $107B from Fed

Quick Links

Maxine Waters tells Tea Part to 'go to hell'

Frederica Wilson calls Tea Party the enemy

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means."

-Henry Hazlitt

USA becomes food stamp nation but is it sustainable?

Answer is NO

Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.

Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.

Click here to read the full article at Reuters

Obama's claim that GOP is holding up trade deals

He never submitted any agreements

Those were pretty tough words by the president over the weekend – "the only thing preventing us from passing these bills is the refusal by some in Congress to put country ahead of party," referring to bills he suggests are bottled up in Congress, including free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Not so fast, cry the Republicans: The White House has never submitted the trade bills to Congress for approval. The issue is so confusing – and Obama has been demanding immediate action for so long – that one White House spokesman actually expressed surprise this month when reporters noted the trade bills have not been submitted.

Click here to read the full article at the Washington Post

GOP may OK tax increase that Obama hopes to block

Really

News flash: Congressional Republicans want to raise your taxes.

Impossible, right? GOP lawmakers are so virulently anti-tax, surely they will fight to prevent a payroll tax increase on virtually every wage-earner starting Jan. 1, right?

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Morgan Stanley at brink got $107B from Fed

Includes charts and graphs

As markets convulsed in September 2008, Morgan Stanley (MS) Treasurer David Wong briefed the Federal Reserve on a "dark" scenario in which the U.S. firm would need at least $10 billion of emergency loans from the central bank.

It got 10 times darker by month's end. Morgan Stanley borrowed $107.3 billion, the most of any bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News using information released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, related court orders and an act of Congress.

Click here to read the full article at Bloomberg

About The Wilkow Majority

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New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 22, 2011

Admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:15:12 +0000

The Content

August 22, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

Deportation policy change offers relief for undocumented students

Cummings: Black community wants Obama to "fight harder"

If I were President

Social Security disability on verge of insolvency

GM says bankruptcy excuses it from Impala repairs

Quick Links

Maxine Waters tells Tea Part to 'go to hell'

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him."

-Booker T. Washington

Deportation policy change offers relief for undocumented students

Illegals very happy with new Obama policy

For years, Roberto Guzman was afraid to drive to class at Sacramento City College for fear he would be pulled over and deported to Mexico.

Now Guzman – whose parents brought him to California from Zacatecas state when he was 2 – is among thousands of undocumented immigrants breathing easier.

Click here to read the full article at the Sacramento Bee

Cummings: Black community wants Obama to "fight harder"

Fight harder how?

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Sunday that African-Americans want President Obama to "fight harder" to create jobs in the struggling U.S. economy.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, Cummings said the black community is very protective of Obama and is upset by attacks coming from Republicans on the president. But the lawmaker, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said African-Americans want Obama to not concede to Republican demands.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

If I were President…

Liberals tell you "if I were President"

THERE'S a near-total disconnect between our real, large, urgent problems and the who's-up-who's-down cage match that is the daily bread of our pundit class. Unending wars, a bone-dry Southwest and flooded Midwest, the absence of a jobs program – these have been, at best, of anecdotal interest to the mouths that roar on television. Instead, media-friendly politicians and pundits have been obsessed with two contrived priorities: the debt ceiling and a presidential election that's 15 months away.

"In moments of crisis, style dissolves into character," says Warren Bennis, the scholar of leadership who has advised four presidents. And not just for our leaders – talking heads are also being tested. For all their eloquence, most have nothing to say that we haven't heard them say before. Bored and frustrated, I found myself hoping for ideas that might challenge or inspire. Then I asked a range of Americans who don't labor in politics or the media what they'd do if they were president.

Click here to read the full article at the New York Times

Social Security disability on verge of insolvency

Shocker!

Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

GM says bankruptcy excuses it from Impala repairs

"New" GM says it's not responsible

General Motors Co (GM.N) is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit over a suspension problem on more than 400,000 Chevrolet Impalas from the 2007 and 2008 model years, saying it should not be responsible for repairs because the flaw predated its bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, filed on June 29 by Donna Trusky of Blakely, Pennsylvania, contended that her Impala suffered from faulty rear spindle rods, causing her rear tires to wear out after just 6,000 miles.

Click here to read the full article at Reuters

About The Wilkow Majority

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The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 19, 2011

Admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:14:23 +0000

The Content

August 19, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

US makes criminals priority deportation

Is Chevy Volt running out juice?

Retailers raise prices to offset U.S. labor costs

Coalition of moderate Dems loses members

Quick Links

Rick Perry takes questions from a child

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded."

-F.A. Hayek

US makes criminals priority deportation

Obama tells illegals, "hang out, vote."

Many illegal immigrants who were facing deportation despite having no criminal record will be allowed to stay in the country and apply for a work permit under new rules from the Homeland Security Department. Republicans are balking at the change.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Thursday that the department will focus on deporting illegal immigrants who are criminals or pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Is Chevy Volt running out juice?

Answer: YES

Is the Chevrolet Volt running out of juice? Even as the maker begins its long-promised production ramp-up, a new study suggests that potential buyers are rapidly losing interest in the plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Introduced last December, Volt is one of the first new vehicles to test the potential market for electric propulsion. It has been going head-to-head with Nissan's pure battery-electric LEAF. Sales of the two vehicles have been marginal, at best, though the makers insist that has more to do with limited supply than buyer demand.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Retailers raise prices to offset U.S. labor costs

Simple economics

Retailers and restaurants are raising consumer prices to help compensate for higher labor costs, which increased the most in almost three years during the second quarter.

Fifty-three percent of these companies with annual sales of $10 million to $500 million have lifted prices during the last 12 months, up from 32 percent a year ago, according to a quarterly survey by Barlow Research Associates. This comes as U.S. inflation excluding food and energy costs accelerated at an annual pace of 1.8 percent in July, the biggest such gain in more than a year, according to Labor Department data released yesterday.

Click here to read the full article at Bloomberg News

Coalition of moderate Dems loses members

Blue Dogs going extinct

The Blue Dogs may be losing their bark. Despite polls showing a desire for more compromise in Washington, the political climate for moderate to conservative Democrats in the House has continued to deteriorate.

The 2010 election dropped the number of so-called Blue Dogs from 54 to 25. And the shrinking continues.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 17, 2011

Admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:13:20 +0000

The Content

August 17, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

Democrats hold seats in Wisconsin recall elections

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian island

ATF promotes supervisors in controversial gun operation

Seattle's 'green jobs' program a bust

Quick Links

Ed Schultz says he's sorry

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."

-Thomas Jefferson

Democrats hold seats in Wisconsin recall elections

We can't win them all in Wisc.

Both Democrats and Republicans were claiming victory on Tuesday in a series of nine summer recall votes in which Democrats unseated two incumbent Republicans but fell short of winning control of the state legislature.

Democrats had hoped to win a majority in the state senate following a fierce battle with Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies earlier this year over public workers' union powers that involved mass protests, legislative maneuvering and court challenges.

Click here to read the full article at Reuters

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian island

Going Galt?

Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch–free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

ATF promotes supervisors in controversial gun operation

Given cushy desk jobs

Reporting from Washington- The ATF has promoted three key supervisors of a controversial sting operation that allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico.

All three have been heavily criticized for pushing the program forward even as it became apparent that it was out of control. At least 2,000 guns were lost and many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and two at the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

Click here to read the full article at the Los Angeles Times

Seattle's 'green jobs' program a bust

$20M Fed dollars for nothing

Reporting from Washington- The ATF has promoted three key supervisors of a controversial sting operation that allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico.

Click here to read the full article at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 16, 2011

Admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:12:42 +0000

The Content

August 16, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

White House debates fight on economy

Rutgers boosting athletics at expense of academics fail to emulate Texas

Obama spars with Tea Party activist

Washington losing credibility among US business

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule."

-Samuel Adams

White House debates fight on economy

New Dept. of Jobs?

As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises, advisers to the president say.

Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.

Click here to read the full article at the New York Times

Rutgers boosting athletics at expense of academics fail to emulate Texas

State aid being cut

Rutgers University forgave $100,000 of the football coach's interest-free home loan last year. The women's basketball coach got monthly golf and car allowances. Both collected bonuses without winning a championship.

Meanwhile, the history department took away professors' desk phones to save money and shrank its doctoral program by 25 percent. After funding cuts by the deficit-strapped Legislature, New Jersey's state university froze professors' salaries, cut the use of photocopies for exams and jacked up student tuition, housing and other fees.

Click here to read the full article at Bloomberg News

Obama spars with Tea Party activist

And by "spars" they mean yell at each other

US President Barack Obama went head-to-head with a prominent conservative Tea Party activist, in a microcosm of a political clash that will play out in the 2012 election.

Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the group in Iowa, took on Obama during an open-air town hall meeting, which marked a moment of new intensity in the president's campaign for a second term.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Washington losing credibility among US business

Starbucks CEO says he won't donate to politicians

If Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz is any gauge on the corporate zeitgeist, businesses around the country have had enough of Washington politics and they're not going to take it anymore. (Well, some of them anyway). Schultz is not alone in saying that there is a profound lack of trust in the U.S. congress to prescribe policies to help the economy and reduce the deficit. He said the debt debate and subsequent budget bill a disappointment, to put it mildly.

Schultz was on CNBC "Squawk on the Street" Tuesday morning calling on businesses to follow his lead and stop all political contributions until Republicans and Democrats commit to working together. CNBC ran a poll asking if American business leaders should stop contributing to both parties until they showed some signs of bipartisanship. Out of the more than 3,300 people that responded, an impressive 89% said they agreeed with Schultz, that the best way to send a message to congress was for big business donors to simply stop donating money to these guys.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 15, 2011

Admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:11:45 +0000

The Content

August 15, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

America's over-spending problem

Struggling Republican Pawlenty exits White House race

August 15, 1971: A date which has lived in infamy

Why the stock market tanked

Today's Audio

This day in history: Nixon ends gold/dollar ties

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric."

-Thomas Sowell

America's over-spending problem

Article has charts AND graphs

After receiving many comments on my recent post laying some of the blame for our deficits on President George W. Bush, but much more of the blame on President Barack Obama, I decide to recheck how I that this impression.

If you believe that "a picture is worth a thousand words," then these pictures will relieve the need for much narrative. It's easy to be in denial when your information is based on opinions or incorrect data. It is much harder when faced with graphic evidence. Therefore, this post is for all of those who disagree about who caused the spending problem in recent years in the USA, and for all those who have been arguing to no avail to prove that point.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Struggling Republican Pawlenty exits White House race

Good move on his part, really

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty became the first major casualty in the marathon U.S. presidential campaign on Sunday while fellow Republicans Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry built momentum in the race.

Pawlenty, once seen as a strong contender for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election, dropped out a day after a disappointing showing in Iowa's straw poll, a key early test of strength among his party's candidates.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

August 15, 1971: A date which has lived in infamy

Nixon forces dollar and gold to cut ties

In their impossibly good book Money, Markets, and Sovereignty (2009), Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds make the point that over the last four thousand years, the only period in which humanity has not consistently based its currency in metal, specifically gold, is the last forty. That's right. Ever since President Richard M. Nixon announced forty years ago today, on August 15, 1971, that the U.S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold, we have been enjoying a new era of human history.

Enjoying not being the mot juste. Out of the gate, we got the 1970s, what with their stagflation, a real stock market performance worse than that of the 1930s, and a crisis of confidence such had never bedeviled the American people before. There were go-go years in the 1980s and 1990s, to be sure, when stocks increased 15-fold and the tech revolution changed the world. But now we have our woebegotten 2000s, where stocks lose ground against the price level year after year, 9% unemployment is the new normal, and explosive government spending and Federal Reserve blowouts can't create a job.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Why the stock market tanked

Forbes breaks it down

The stock market's 1000-point setback, echoed the world over, has been a shock and a puzzle. Following a tripartite debt-control agreement in Washington, how could the economic situation be worse than before? I begin with a suspicion that the much prayed-for "deal" was a pretense. On Aug. 1, all three negotiating groups concluded that their time had finally run out. Though they had gotten nowhere, they declared a victory simply by announcing agreement.

The gridlock that has exercised the media over the past months is now set to continue inside the twelve-member select committee authorized by the "deal." Between them, these twelve won't have any more teeth than the debt limit itself did. Even if, miraculously, they were to come out with the right stuff, neither house of Congress, and neither political party, is obligated to ratify it. Now the debt limit has been raised, but the warring sides are back in the same positions they had staked out all along.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

About The Wilkow Majority

The Wilkow Majority broadcasts live, Monday-Friday from 12-3pm EST on SIRIUS XM Patriot.

The Wilkow Majority
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York 10020

The Wilkow Majority | 1221 Avenue of the Americas | New York City | NY | 10020

Content – Aug 12, 2011

Admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:09:39 +0000

The Content

August 12, 2011

In This Issue

Quote of the Day

Supercommittee member Rep. Becerra to be feted by lobbyist at DC fundraiser

Axelrod says he'd fire campaign staff who slime Romney

What you missed while watching the Iowa GOP debate

Romney: "Corporations are people my friend."

GM recalls 16,000 Chevy, Buick cars in U.S. and Canada

Today's Audio

Full Iowa Debate 8/11/11

Quick Links

Quote of the Day

"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers."

-F.A. Hayek

Supercommittee member Rep. Becerra to be feted by lobbyist at DC fundraiser

"Super Congress" has it's perks

Mere hours after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) named Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) to the debt-reduction supercommittee, lobbyists were gearing up to fete him at a fundraiser later this month.

The Investment Company Institute, which according to public records has already spent $2.4 million lobbying Congress this year, on Thursday touted a fundraiser for Becerra scheduled for Aug. 31.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

Axelrod says he'd fire campaign staff who slime Romney

Suuuure he will

Any member of President Obama's reelection campaign who works to slime former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) as a general election candidate risks being fired, senior campaign adviser David Axelrod said Friday.

Amid reports that the president's campaign was preparing a plan to "kill Romney" as a general election candidate, Axelrod stressed that they had no such plan in waiting.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

What you missed while watching the Iowa GOP debate

Minute by minute

-1 minutes. As everyone awaits the third Republican presidential debate of the season, Bill O'Reilly is wrapping up his show on Fox News. When he threatens to call Professor Cornel West a "pinhead," America knows. It's go time.

0 minutes. "Thanks Bill," says Bret Baier, the blockishly handsome anchorman with a hard-boiled name. He welcomes everybody, but it's hard to hear him. Apparently thousands of people in the massive Iowa State University auditorium are screaming at the top of their lungs. Has something gone wrong? The camera pans back to show a swirling light show dancing over the crowd. Fox News knows how to get the party started. Hit them with the lights.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Romney: "Corporations are people my friend."

Democrats getting talking points from hecklers

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, clearly irritated by a handful of hecklers amid supporters at the Iowa State Fair, insisted Thursday that "corporations are people," a comment Democrats gleefully predicted would be a defining moment of his campaign.

Hours before he was to face most of his primary opponents in an Iowa debate, the former Massachusetts governor was outlining options for reining in the federal deficit and overhauling entitlement programs. He acknowledged that raising taxes on individuals was an option, but he said he opposed it.

Click here to read the full article at the Associated Press

GM recalls 16,000 Chevy, Buick cars in U.S. and Canada

Oooops

General Motors Co is recalling 16,198 Chevrolet Impala and Buick LaCrosse cars in the United States and Canada to address sensor and power steering problems, the automaker said on Friday.

The company said it knew of no injuries or crashes related to the two recalls.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

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