Henrique Capriles Becomes Venezuela’s Opposition Presidential Candidate By A Landslide
(Yes! He can smile!)
Chavismo Is Very Concerned About Capriles’ MUDslide in Sunday’s Primaries
While I expected the surprise factor to play a role in how Chavismo reacted to Sunday’s results, I am a little surprised by the fraud slant taken by most Chavista leaders. I mean, you can expect craziness from Mario Silva, but when Diosdado Cabello and Jorge Rodriguez step in to suggest fraud, when the Government controlled Electoral Board ran the election, you know these guys are nervous.The Curious Downfall of the Heir Apparent to Hugo Chavez
It was one of the biggest political surprises of the last few months, if not years, when Hugo Chavez announced that his Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, would be the candidate for Governor of Carabobo State in 2012. Maduro had been considered Chavez’ heir apparent if it became necessary for the Venezuelan President to step aside in 2012 due to health reasons. In fact, many people, including yours truly, believed that Chavez would name Maduro as his Vice-President some time in the very near future, replacing Elias Jaua, who is not popular among various Chavista factions.
The federal budget
Tax and build
by R.A. | WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON wonks are focused today on the release of the Obama administration's budget proposals for the 2013 fiscal year. We will have in depth coverage following the White House budget briefing. For now, a few things stand out. First, the president's proposals generate a federal deficit of $900 billion in fiscal 2013. If it is verified, that would be America's first deficit of less than $1 trillion since the 2008 fiscal year. It would also represent a reduction in the deficit, as a share of GDP, from 8.5% to 5.5%. Overall, the budget calls for a reduction in the deficit to 2.8% of GDP by 2019, where it is projected to remain through the end of the ten-year budget window. That's close to primary balance—the government's books would nearly balance net of interest costs. The 2013 budget's proposals result in less deficit reduction than the plan produced (but not agreed upon) by last fall's bipartisan budget "Supercommittee".Barack Obama's budget
The phony war
by G.I. | WASHINGTON
TAKEN at face value, Barack Obama’s latest budget is a bold combination of fiscal rectitude, populist tax increases and industrial policy-lite: tax breaks for manufacturers, more money for community colleges, and a dollop of money for infrastructure.Do not take it at face value. A president’s budget has always been hostage to whatever Congress is in a mood to grant. In the last three years, however, the gap between aspiration and reality has become so large as to be almost surreal.
Too close for comfort
Afghanistan
In the war in Afghanistan it is not always obvious which side Pakistan is on
The Federal Reserve's Crony Capitalism. by James A. Dorn
The Federal Reserve’s decision to release forecasts for short-term interest rates is supposed to clarify monetary policy and reassure the public. By keeping the federal funds rate close to zero for three more years, and switching from shorter to longer-term securities, the Fed hopes to spur investment and growth. The problem is that manipulating interest rates and allocating credit to favored parties fosters crony capitalism, not market liberalism.
Attack of the Pork Hawks by Doug Bandow
Conservative politicians want to cut spending — except for the military. Where that's concerned, they sound like liberals. In fact, conservatives have adopted several liberal ploys to justify today's bloated military budget.
First, big spenders on the right argue that Washington must continue doing everything that it has ever done abroad. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), one of the leading pork hawks, has denounced the idea of doing "less with less."Obama Has No Plan B. by Richard W. Rahn
President Obama has just presented his new budget, which again ignores reality. It contains another trillion-dollar deficit, which assumes a large increase in revenue resulting from a tax-rate increase on “the wealthy” and corporations. He knows, and so does everyone else, that Congress is not going to pass the tax increase. Even if it did, the projected revenues would not be forthcoming because the “wealthy” people would change their behavior and find other ways to obtain income, and economic growth would decline, costing tax revenue. Corporate taxes are paid by consumers in higher prices and by workers in lower wages — so much for the promise not to increase taxes on those making less than $250,000. Every good tax economist knows this, but the president chooses to ignore reality and demagogue the issue.
Israeli Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities Easier Said than Done by David Isenberg
Despite renewed media speculation regarding possible Israeli attacks against Iran's nuclear facilities as early as this spring, scepticism that such a campaign could actually be successfully carried out remains relatively high, raising the question of whether there is more bark than bite to Israeli threats.
It cannot expect a repeat of 1981 when the Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak reactor at Al-Tuwaythah, just south of Baghdad.A Debate about Contraception Or Religious Freedom? No, a Debate about Economic Choice. by Michael D. Tanner
Lost in the uproar over the Obama administration’s requirement that religiously affiliated organizations provide employees with insurance that covers contraceptives, including some abortifacients, is the fact that this rule is simply one more symptom of the fundamental problem with Obamacare. That problem is not papered over by the administration’s latest “compromise.”
First, let’s be clear: This issue never had anything whatsoever to do with women’s health. There is nothing that prevents any woman who wants contraceptives from purchasing them. No one is threatening to take that right away, and no one should.No Winners in U.S.-China Trade War
Posted by
Chinese Vice President and assumed-future President Xi Jinping visits Washington this week amid growing concern that the U.S.-China economic relationship is headed for a difficult stretch. An emerging narrative in 2012 is that a proliferation of protectionist, treaty-violating, or otherwise illiberal Chinese policies is to blame for worsening U.S.-China relations.
Chinese Vice President and assumed-future President Xi Jinping visits Washington this week amid growing concern that the U.S.-China economic relationship is headed for a difficult stretch. An emerging narrative in 2012 is that a proliferation of protectionist, treaty-violating, or otherwise illiberal Chinese policies is to blame for worsening U.S.-China relations.
Meet the Parents of the Super PACs. by Edward H. Crane and David Keating
If you are looking for the villains who created the so-called Super PACs, look no further. We are the guilty parties.
We are two of the winning plaintiffs in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission, which was decided by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2010. Contrary to the belief that Citizens United created Super PACs, SpeechNow.org made such groups possible and legal.As Jan. 31's disclosure of the supporters of Super PACs showed, the majority of funding for almost all of them comes from individuals. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court did not alter the $5,000 limit on individuals combining their efforts through traditional political action committees to promote a federal campaign. But SpeechNow.org recognized the right of individuals to give unlimited funds to any such committee organized solely to make independent expenditures(although the contributors and their contributions must be disclosed). What Citizens United did was to affirm the right of corporations and unions to make such independent expenditures.
Santorum Is Severely Wrong. by Gene Healy
"I am severely conservative," Mitt Romney told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday. Way to sell it, governor!
Clearly the Romney-2012 Presidential Unit still has a few bugs in its pandering software. The former Massachusetts governor's robotic awkwardness helped propel Rick Santorum to a string of victories in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado last week, and a new Pew Research Center poll has him with a slight lead on Romney among Republican voters nationally.Let 560 Nations Bloom – Within the Boundaries of the U.S.
This post by Michael Strong is part of Secession Week 2010: Federalism and Secession
Arguably the simplist and most immediate path for “Letting a Thousand Nations Bloom” is to support tribal sovereignty movements around the world, especially in the Common Law nations of the Anglosphere like the U.S. Other colonialist European nations unapologetically battled and conquered indigenous peoples, but coming from a revered tradition of rule of law and the Lockean principle of “first possession,” many British colonists found the entire “conquest” project a bit morally awkward even several hundred years ago.
Arguably the simplist and most immediate path for “Letting a Thousand Nations Bloom” is to support tribal sovereignty movements around the world, especially in the Common Law nations of the Anglosphere like the U.S. Other colonialist European nations unapologetically battled and conquered indigenous peoples, but coming from a revered tradition of rule of law and the Lockean principle of “first possession,” many British colonists found the entire “conquest” project a bit morally awkward even several hundred years ago.
City Solutions
The City Solution
Why cities are the best cure for our planet’s growing pains
Photograph by Chia Ming Chien
At the time of Jack the Ripper, a hard time for London, there lived in that city a mild-mannered stenographer named Ebenezer Howard. He's worth mentioning because he had a large and lingering impact on how we think about cities.
The Weakness of Voice to Effect Political Change
La plus ca change and all that…Greenwald:
“The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. . . . The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.”
Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo.
The Horrors of Getting Approval for an Ice Cream Parlour in San Francisco
The tragedy of the anti-commons is a useful concept for understanding a prevalent type of government failure in both poor and rich countries–excessive permit and licensing requirements. A pervasive multiple licensing system can create an impenetrable conjunctive permission line that even the most energetic cannot overcome. To start a business, to build, to hire, to sell, you need first to convince bureaucrat A and B and C and D and so on. The longer the conjunctive line, the less frequently entrepreneurs enter the market with new products and services. The transaction costs for dealing with each bureaucrat are very high, as is the likelihood that any single one will say no. The upshot is an impoverished society. To take one example, in medieval times, barons who owned parcels of land along the Rhine River collected tolls from each ship that passed by. As a result, few ships sailed down the Rhine.
Francis Fukuyama asks, What is Governance?
He even has the courage to doubt that democracy is always the best:
We Americans tend to believe that democracy is an intrinsic part of good governance and that more democracy means better quality government…However, this postulated relationship remains just a theory that remains subject to more empirical testing. One can think of many ways in which greater democratic participation actually weakens the quality of governance. One case happened in the United States when Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828, as a result of the broadening of the franchise in many states in that period. Jackson argued (1) that since his party won the election, he should get to appoint federal officials; and (2) that there was no job in the US government that was so difficult that any ordinary American couldn’t do it. This was the beginning of the patronage system in the US, in which the federal bureaucracy was controlled by the two political parties and in which jobs turned over with every election cycle.
Free Cities
How to create freedom and opportunity for illegal immigrants in their own countries.
THE DESPERATION THAT drives millions of illegal immigrants into this country will never subside as long as there are no jobs and no opportunities in their stagnant homeland economies. Fortunately, there is a way the United States could jump-start vibrant, non-corrupt, globalized economies inside otherwise destitute third world countries. We could do it soon, and we could do it for a lot less than we'd have to pay to assimilate millions more illegal aliens. The solution is to adapt and propagate the free market model of post-colonial Hong Kong.
2012 Presidential White Paper #1
2012 Presidential White Paper #1
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
INTRODUCTION
Among all likely candidates for President in 2012, none has a record in public office or in commentary on public affairs as long or as thorough as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He has been voting or commenting on every important issue facing American politics, almost without interruption, for more than 30 years. An exhaustive analysis of every nuance of each proposal is neither possible here, nor terribly useful for our purposes. This report will focus on the highlights of his 19-year congressional voting record, as well as the economic policy positions he has most consistently championed in his post-congressional writings up to the present day.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
INTRODUCTION
 | Print off a PDF version of this paper, complete with footnotes. |
Monday, February 13, 2012
This Is What An Economic Depression Looks Like In The 21st Century
Do you want to see what a 21st century economic depression looks like? Just look at Greece. Once upon a time, the Greek economy was thriving, the Greek government was borrowing money like there was no tomorrow and Greek citizens were thoroughly enjoying the bubble of false prosperity that all that debt created. Those that warned that Greece was headed for a financial collapse were laughed at and were called "doom and gloomers". Well, nobody is laughing now. You see, the truth is that debt is a very cruel master. Greeks were able to live way beyond their means for many, many years but eventually a day of reckoning arrived. At this point, the Greek economy has been in a recession for five years in a row, and the economic crisis in that country is rapidly getting even worse. It was just recently announced that the overall rate of unemployment in Greece has soared above 20 percent and the youth unemployment rate has risen to an astounding 48 percent. One out of every five retail stores has been shut down and parents are literally abandoning children in the streets. The frightening thing is that this is just the beginning. Things are going to get a lot worse in Greece. And in case you haven't been paying attention, these kinds of conditions are coming to the United States as well. We are heading down the exact same road as Greece went down, and the economic pain that this country is eventually going to suffer is going to be beyond anything that most Americans would dare to imagine.
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