Here's the MSNBC election roundtable on Rand Paul's election to the Senate.
Hit it at the 7:30 mark.
Here's a Baltimore TV reviewer called Z On TV, on what you're about to see:
Some might call it an anchor desk, but I would not debase the word "anchor" by putting it in front of a desk that includes folks offering this kind of analysis. The team includes: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell and Eugene Robinson.
This is their reaction Tuesday night to the victory speech of Rand Paul, the new U.S. senator from Kentucky. Check out O'Donnell's words, in particular, against MSNBC's claim that Fox News, not MSNBC, is the cable channel trafficking in fear. O'Donnell says Rand is now "empowered" to "creat a worldwide despression."
Showing posts with label Rachel Maddow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rachel Maddow. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
6 suggestions for creating jobs
On Meet The Press yesterday, I watched former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the Republican National Committee’s Ed Gillespie, and New York Times typist David Brooks. The sat in a circle and lamented the current failure of the Statist dream.
They were trying to decide how to create jobs and “grow” the economy. It would have been funny had it not been so depressing. Some level of government pump-priming was assumed by all to be necessary. Needless interference from Washington munchkins was a given. No one really questioned the level of harm caused by the recent Porkulus, TARP, Detroit and Wall Street bailouts. Even ideas about tax cuts were presented as “for small businesses only”, as if the janitors at General Electric weren’t worth a raise, but the millionaire owners of a Mom’n’Pop enterprises should automatically get a tax break.
(One important thing to remember: Corporations don’t pay taxes. People do. Corporations merely aid the government in collecting taxes from people - they funnel money to Uncle Sam from their employees, their vendors, customers, and their owners.)
Ford, Maddow, Gillespie and Brooks, along with their lords and masters in government, are like the folks whose only tool is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. The only remaining solution in their toolbag is to take away everything, and then parcel it back out to the people whose behavior they like.
Imagine that you are a small business owner, one of the ones now beloved by politicians everywhere. Or imagine that you are one of Obama's greedy mega-business owners and that you have difficulty speaking because of all the steak and lobster stuffed into your cheeks and the multiple cigars in your mouth that you lit with $100 bills stolen from the savings of orphans.
Imagine that you’re either one of those types of guys. There’s really no difference between the two, except for lobbying power. What would encourage you to hire more people? More speeches from The Teleprompter Jesus? “Investments” of more of your tax money into green “energy”? (Note the scorn quotes.) Would you feel better about hiring more people if the government passed another Porkulus Plan to spend even more money on….government?
I think not. Ask yourself if the following proposals might be more effective:
1. We currently have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Cut that tax rate in half. Let businesses keep the money that they’re earning and let them spend it as they see fit. They can spend it on themselves, on employees, on equipment, on paying vendors, or giving the savings to customers. Either way, it will still get spent or invested. Letting Bill Gates or Mark Cuban or even Jerry Jones spend the money is always a better choice than letting Obama, Reid and Pelosi give the money to their constitutents. If that means there’s less money to be squandered by the Richland Hills Texas City Planning Department, well, so be it.
2. The teen unemployment rate is hovering around 40-50%. We just had a minimum wage increase from $5.25 to $7.25 an hour. Statists are always, always, always surprised when these arbitrary price-fixes hurt teen employment. I have teenagers show up every day looking for work, and some of them might already be worth $10.00 or $12.00 an hour to my employer. Some of them are worth about $3.00 an hour, if motivated with cattle prods. Some of them aren’t worth the amount of CO2 they pump into the environment every day. I would be willing to take a chance on hiring trainloads of these kids if I could do so at around $4.00 an hour. Some of them would be making $12.00 within a year. Most would not. Others would quit within the first week. The only way to find out who is in which group? Hire a bunch of them. But I’m not taking that chance at $7.25 an hour.
3. The black unemployment rate is now at 15%, as compared to a nationwide rate of 9.6%. Why is this? It’s because if I hire a black guy and he doesn’t work out, I’m going to have to spend countless hours with our Human Resources department proving that I’m not a racist who discriminates against black people. The black employee that I let go will automatically be given unemployment compensation, whereas we usually fight those claims filed by someone in a non-protected group. If employees couldn’t sue employers who didn’t want to employ them any longer, just like grocery stores or lawn services can’t sue me when I stop employing them, we might again see minority employment once again pass white employment levels. (Do a bit o’Googling to find out when that was last true. Hint: use the key words “Davis Bacon Act”.)
4. When you hire a babysitter, do you look forward to withholding and paying her taxes? Do you feel obligated to provide for her health insurance? Do you believe that babysitters should be unionized, without benefit of a secret ballot election, and that you should then be forced to hire ONLY union babysitters? Would collecting taxes, providing healthcare, and paying more for union babysitters cause you to hire more or less of them? Please be brief with your response.
5. Our president delights, absolutely delights, in demonizing successful large businesses and employers who want to hang onto the money they earn after they take the risk of hiring people. Could whoever programs his teleprompter change the script and get that idiot to stop doing that? He’s scaring people.
6. Central banks are starting to look at dollars as if they were hand-grenades dipped in HIV vaseline. These people know that the current regime isn’t going to stop throwing money to its constituents as if every day is Mardi Gras, and billions are beads. They know that the Obama/Bernanke/Pelosi Axis Of Inflation is about to start firing up the printing presses. Could we encourage them to stop spending, since dollars are the only currency we can use in the U.S., and we don’t want the market to be flooded with them?
I don’t have an economics degree, and I will never, ever be selected as a talking head on Meet The Press. But I do hire people. Or don't. It just depends on the incentives, doesn't it?
They were trying to decide how to create jobs and “grow” the economy. It would have been funny had it not been so depressing. Some level of government pump-priming was assumed by all to be necessary. Needless interference from Washington munchkins was a given. No one really questioned the level of harm caused by the recent Porkulus, TARP, Detroit and Wall Street bailouts. Even ideas about tax cuts were presented as “for small businesses only”, as if the janitors at General Electric weren’t worth a raise, but the millionaire owners of a Mom’n’Pop enterprises should automatically get a tax break.
(One important thing to remember: Corporations don’t pay taxes. People do. Corporations merely aid the government in collecting taxes from people - they funnel money to Uncle Sam from their employees, their vendors, customers, and their owners.)
Ford, Maddow, Gillespie and Brooks, along with their lords and masters in government, are like the folks whose only tool is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. The only remaining solution in their toolbag is to take away everything, and then parcel it back out to the people whose behavior they like.
Imagine that you are a small business owner, one of the ones now beloved by politicians everywhere. Or imagine that you are one of Obama's greedy mega-business owners and that you have difficulty speaking because of all the steak and lobster stuffed into your cheeks and the multiple cigars in your mouth that you lit with $100 bills stolen from the savings of orphans.
Imagine that you’re either one of those types of guys. There’s really no difference between the two, except for lobbying power. What would encourage you to hire more people? More speeches from The Teleprompter Jesus? “Investments” of more of your tax money into green “energy”? (Note the scorn quotes.) Would you feel better about hiring more people if the government passed another Porkulus Plan to spend even more money on….government?
I think not. Ask yourself if the following proposals might be more effective:
1. We currently have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Cut that tax rate in half. Let businesses keep the money that they’re earning and let them spend it as they see fit. They can spend it on themselves, on employees, on equipment, on paying vendors, or giving the savings to customers. Either way, it will still get spent or invested. Letting Bill Gates or Mark Cuban or even Jerry Jones spend the money is always a better choice than letting Obama, Reid and Pelosi give the money to their constitutents. If that means there’s less money to be squandered by the Richland Hills Texas City Planning Department, well, so be it.
2. The teen unemployment rate is hovering around 40-50%. We just had a minimum wage increase from $5.25 to $7.25 an hour. Statists are always, always, always surprised when these arbitrary price-fixes hurt teen employment. I have teenagers show up every day looking for work, and some of them might already be worth $10.00 or $12.00 an hour to my employer. Some of them are worth about $3.00 an hour, if motivated with cattle prods. Some of them aren’t worth the amount of CO2 they pump into the environment every day. I would be willing to take a chance on hiring trainloads of these kids if I could do so at around $4.00 an hour. Some of them would be making $12.00 within a year. Most would not. Others would quit within the first week. The only way to find out who is in which group? Hire a bunch of them. But I’m not taking that chance at $7.25 an hour.
3. The black unemployment rate is now at 15%, as compared to a nationwide rate of 9.6%. Why is this? It’s because if I hire a black guy and he doesn’t work out, I’m going to have to spend countless hours with our Human Resources department proving that I’m not a racist who discriminates against black people. The black employee that I let go will automatically be given unemployment compensation, whereas we usually fight those claims filed by someone in a non-protected group. If employees couldn’t sue employers who didn’t want to employ them any longer, just like grocery stores or lawn services can’t sue me when I stop employing them, we might again see minority employment once again pass white employment levels. (Do a bit o’Googling to find out when that was last true. Hint: use the key words “Davis Bacon Act”.)
4. When you hire a babysitter, do you look forward to withholding and paying her taxes? Do you feel obligated to provide for her health insurance? Do you believe that babysitters should be unionized, without benefit of a secret ballot election, and that you should then be forced to hire ONLY union babysitters? Would collecting taxes, providing healthcare, and paying more for union babysitters cause you to hire more or less of them? Please be brief with your response.
5. Our president delights, absolutely delights, in demonizing successful large businesses and employers who want to hang onto the money they earn after they take the risk of hiring people. Could whoever programs his teleprompter change the script and get that idiot to stop doing that? He’s scaring people.
6. Central banks are starting to look at dollars as if they were hand-grenades dipped in HIV vaseline. These people know that the current regime isn’t going to stop throwing money to its constituents as if every day is Mardi Gras, and billions are beads. They know that the Obama/Bernanke/Pelosi Axis Of Inflation is about to start firing up the printing presses. Could we encourage them to stop spending, since dollars are the only currency we can use in the U.S., and we don’t want the market to be flooded with them?
I don’t have an economics degree, and I will never, ever be selected as a talking head on Meet The Press. But I do hire people. Or don't. It just depends on the incentives, doesn't it?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Rachel Maddow eats a Republican Congressman's lunch
They had a new Republican Congressman on Meet The Press yesterday, and Rachel Maddow took his lunch, carved it up into little bite-sized pieces, dipped it in Ranch Dressing, and ate it. This is from The Huffington Post:
A heated exchange took place during NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday when MSNBC host Rachel Maddow accused Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) of hypocrisy for railing against a spending bill in public while touting its benefits in his home district.
Schock was introduced as our youngest Congressman, and the first to be born in the 1980's.
Appearing alongside each other during a panel session, Maddow pivoted from a discussion on job creation to note that Schock had appeared at an event on Friday touting a grant program that he had voted against.
Get the kids out of the room, finish digesting your breakfast, and hit that link. Ughhh....
"You, in your district, I just read that you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district," she said. "You voted against the bill that created that grant. That's happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That, I think, is a problem that needs to be resolved within your caucus. Because you seem like a very nice person but that is a very hypocritical stance to take."
Where to begin, where to begin....Let's start with the "Green Technology Education Program" concept. Since almost all government funding for Green Technology is a massive waste, and since the word Green is now nothing but a feel-good righteousness blanket, would it not be cheaper to eliminate everything but the education component of Green programs? Eliminate the research, engineering and manufacturing, and go straight to the indoctrination component, which is what this mess is all about?
"Ok, kids, get ready. I'm going to say a magic word 3 times. Please write a 750 word essay on how righteous you feel afterwards. 'We are Green, Green, Green.' Start typing. Don't you all feel better about giving these nice people your money?"
A somewhat taken-aback Schock insisted that Republicans were "not consulted on the stimulus bill" and shouldn't be blamed for the lack of a bipartisan vote for its passage. This didn't really get to Maddow's point. So after some back-and-forth among the other panelists, Schock jumped back in.
"I think the argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous," he said. "With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you are going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against. The fact of the matter is our country operates and is governed by a majority. And I, along with almost all my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats, have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus and all this runaway spending. But we lost those battles in the House... At the end of the day my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the deficit being created by this majority and they deserve to their fair share of federal spending."
And Schuyler Colfax, Jr. was Vice President during the Ulysses S. Grant presidency, and Colfax later died due to cold and exhaustion while walking 3/4 of a mile to change trains. What the hell does that have to do withy anything, Mr. Schock???? The Democrats dumped a fat, juicy, artery-clogging chunk of rancid, maggot-infested, greenish pork into your district. You should have avoided it like it was Rachel Maddow's boudoir. But instead, you had to slide up next to it, roll in it, lift your leg on it, mark it as your own, and talk about how stealing from the many for the benefit of the few was going to create jobs. Rachel Maddow, of all people, called you out on it. More power to her.
New York Times columnist David Brooks -- appearing alongside Maddow and Schock -- chimed in to suggest that the argument over who should take credit for the stimulus' successes exemplified what was wrong with Washington. But that debate seems likely to only grow in prominence leading up to the 2010 elections. This past week, the Washington Times reported that a host of Republican lawmakers were doing exactly the same thing that Schock was -- only with a bit more insincerity.
"More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to just one of the federal government's many agencies seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects," the paper reported.
I saw this analogy in somebody's Comment Field. Will give credit later if I can find it:
Think of the Republican Party as an abusive husband, and the wife has locked him out of the house. He's now pounding on the door in the middle of the night, drunk out of his mind. "But, honey, I'VE CHANGED ! I'VE CHANGED ! I'M A DIFFERENT MAN NOW ! ! ! "
Bullshit.
They don't want to decrease the size of the mega-state. They just want to be the ones driving it.
Regarding Schock's appearance at the green technology education program ribbon-cutting ceremony, the bill providing funds for that program was an omnibus-spending bill that Congress took up last spring. Maddow's point, nevertheless, remained the same.
"If you vote against the omnibus bill," she said at the end of the exchange, "if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that is funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against."
Precisely. One cannot effectively lead The Sheeple of Illinois to believe that this behavior is wasteful by showing up for these ribbon-cuttings and touting the benefits of stolen, tainted pork. Well said, Rachel Maddow.
Here's a Youtube of the exchange. You can jump to the 1:00 mark and get the general feel of the thing. Note to Congressman Schock: Please, please, please, don't make people agree with Rachel Maddow. Please. Stay home if you have to.
Just to get this unpleasantness out of my system, here's a picture of Rachel Maddow wearing tennis shoes to interview Barney Frank. Doesn't mean anything. Just trying to change the subject.
A heated exchange took place during NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday when MSNBC host Rachel Maddow accused Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) of hypocrisy for railing against a spending bill in public while touting its benefits in his home district.
Schock was introduced as our youngest Congressman, and the first to be born in the 1980's.
Appearing alongside each other during a panel session, Maddow pivoted from a discussion on job creation to note that Schock had appeared at an event on Friday touting a grant program that he had voted against.
Get the kids out of the room, finish digesting your breakfast, and hit that link. Ughhh....
"You, in your district, I just read that you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district," she said. "You voted against the bill that created that grant. That's happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That, I think, is a problem that needs to be resolved within your caucus. Because you seem like a very nice person but that is a very hypocritical stance to take."
Where to begin, where to begin....Let's start with the "Green Technology Education Program" concept. Since almost all government funding for Green Technology is a massive waste, and since the word Green is now nothing but a feel-good righteousness blanket, would it not be cheaper to eliminate everything but the education component of Green programs? Eliminate the research, engineering and manufacturing, and go straight to the indoctrination component, which is what this mess is all about?
"Ok, kids, get ready. I'm going to say a magic word 3 times. Please write a 750 word essay on how righteous you feel afterwards. 'We are Green, Green, Green.' Start typing. Don't you all feel better about giving these nice people your money?"
A somewhat taken-aback Schock insisted that Republicans were "not consulted on the stimulus bill" and shouldn't be blamed for the lack of a bipartisan vote for its passage. This didn't really get to Maddow's point. So after some back-and-forth among the other panelists, Schock jumped back in.
"I think the argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous," he said. "With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you are going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against. The fact of the matter is our country operates and is governed by a majority. And I, along with almost all my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats, have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus and all this runaway spending. But we lost those battles in the House... At the end of the day my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the deficit being created by this majority and they deserve to their fair share of federal spending."
And Schuyler Colfax, Jr. was Vice President during the Ulysses S. Grant presidency, and Colfax later died due to cold and exhaustion while walking 3/4 of a mile to change trains. What the hell does that have to do withy anything, Mr. Schock???? The Democrats dumped a fat, juicy, artery-clogging chunk of rancid, maggot-infested, greenish pork into your district. You should have avoided it like it was Rachel Maddow's boudoir. But instead, you had to slide up next to it, roll in it, lift your leg on it, mark it as your own, and talk about how stealing from the many for the benefit of the few was going to create jobs. Rachel Maddow, of all people, called you out on it. More power to her.
New York Times columnist David Brooks -- appearing alongside Maddow and Schock -- chimed in to suggest that the argument over who should take credit for the stimulus' successes exemplified what was wrong with Washington. But that debate seems likely to only grow in prominence leading up to the 2010 elections. This past week, the Washington Times reported that a host of Republican lawmakers were doing exactly the same thing that Schock was -- only with a bit more insincerity.
"More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to just one of the federal government's many agencies seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects," the paper reported.
I saw this analogy in somebody's Comment Field. Will give credit later if I can find it:
Think of the Republican Party as an abusive husband, and the wife has locked him out of the house. He's now pounding on the door in the middle of the night, drunk out of his mind. "But, honey, I'VE CHANGED ! I'VE CHANGED ! I'M A DIFFERENT MAN NOW ! ! ! "
Bullshit.
They don't want to decrease the size of the mega-state. They just want to be the ones driving it.
Regarding Schock's appearance at the green technology education program ribbon-cutting ceremony, the bill providing funds for that program was an omnibus-spending bill that Congress took up last spring. Maddow's point, nevertheless, remained the same.
"If you vote against the omnibus bill," she said at the end of the exchange, "if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that is funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against."
Precisely. One cannot effectively lead The Sheeple of Illinois to believe that this behavior is wasteful by showing up for these ribbon-cuttings and touting the benefits of stolen, tainted pork. Well said, Rachel Maddow.
Here's a Youtube of the exchange. You can jump to the 1:00 mark and get the general feel of the thing. Note to Congressman Schock: Please, please, please, don't make people agree with Rachel Maddow. Please. Stay home if you have to.
Just to get this unpleasantness out of my system, here's a picture of Rachel Maddow wearing tennis shoes to interview Barney Frank. Doesn't mean anything. Just trying to change the subject.
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