Friday, March 18, 2005
HEH
Hat tip: Safety Valve.
. . .
ONE ‘LITTLE’ DETAIL
Mickey Kaus pans Jonah Goldberg for his interpretation of Clinton and Welfare reform. This is Golberg’s “offending” passage:
Clinton agreed to welfare reform — over the objections of most liberals, including his own wife — because the Republicans forced him to and he'd have lost the 1996 election if he didn't. That was the beginning and the ending of Bill Clinton's fact-finding.
Kaus offers seven reasons why Goldberg is wrong. Yet he leaves out one little inconvenient detail: Clinton twice vetoed the GOP welfare bill before he finally signed it. What was the difference when he did sign it? Basically that the election was much closer than the other two times.
Sorry Mickey. Jonah has this one cold.
. . .
SOCIAL SECURITY OSTRICH: ROBERT B. REICH
Yes, the former Labor Secretary and Social Security Trustee is the new winner of the Ostrich award.
Professor Reich earned the award for this passage in his recent piece in USAToday:
I don't believe Social Security needs fixing anyway.
In the early 1990s, when I was Labor secretary, I was a trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund. So I know how those estimates about the future are made. If you assume that the economy will grow this century at about the same yearly rate that it has grown during the past 100 years — even including the Great Depression of Granddad's generation — the Social Security system will have enough money to pay all retirees what they've been promised for the next 75 years at least.
The Social Security system might, but what about the taxpayers Professor Reich? For ducking the question of how we pay off the bonds in the trust fund, Robert B. Reich is the newest Social Security Ostrich.
Congratulations!
. . .
AARP’S LACK OF CREDIBILITY
My latest at the Spectator.
UPDATE: More here.
UPDATE II: My gosh, the AARP’s credibility is even worse than I initially thought! Now they seem to be taking down inconvenient portions of their website.
. . .
Thursday, March 17, 2005
ONE AND DONE
Cincinnati 76, Iowa 64. So ends the Hawkeye basketball season. Wish I could say that it was fun.
And what’s more, the trip to the Big Dance means we’ve got Steve Alfor for another season. Yay.
. . .
GO, TEDDY, GO!
From Byron York’s account of yesterday’s Support The Judicial Filibuster rally:
Kennedy, for example, referred to Barbara Boxer as Barbara Mikulski. He referred to William Myers, the Bush judicial nominee, as William Morris. And he kept telling the crowd to "speak truth to justice," apparently confusing that with the more common liberal exhortation to "speak truth to power."
. . .
THE ASYLUM
Poor Lawrence Summers. Before he took the position as President of Harvard, he forgot to have the operation that all people must have before becoming president of an academic institution—the testicularectomy.
Maybe it’s because he came directly from government instead of ascending from within the academy that he didn’t know he was supposed to have a testicularectomy. Most college and university presidents have one long before they take over the top job.
Now, for the horrid crime of suggesting that men and women might have substantial cognitive differences, he has been censured by the Harvard jackboots—er, faculty.
Meanwhile, University of Colorado Professor Ward “Little Eichmans” Churchill is still in his position. Ironically, it’s the Univesity of Colorado president, Elizabeth Hoffman, who has resigned over the incident. Guess someone had to be sacrificed, and it is much easier to dump a university president than it is a professor. Thank you tenure system.
I can only think of one place that is possibly more insane than modern day academia.
. . .
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
LEGAL OBLIGATIONS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
My latest post at Social Security Choice.
. . .
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
THAT POOR CAT!
It must be getting an awful thrashing!
From Forbes:
Retail sales, bolstered by a rebound in demand for autos, rose a healthy 0.5 percent in February, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
From Reuters:
Thirty percent of U.S. employers plan to increase hiring in the second quarter, compared with 24 percent in the first quarter, Manpower [Inc.] said in its latest employment outlook survey. Just 7 percent of employers expected to decrease staff, the survey showed.
. . .
Monday, March 14, 2005
BIG RAISE FOR PINCH…
…but other New York Times’ workers have to give one back. See more from James Glassman, who ends his post:
So any day now we'll be reading new Krugman/Herbert columns damning millionaire CEOs who get their jobs by nepotism and raise their own multi-million dollar salaries while rank and file employees take cuts in pay and benefits.
. . .
Sunday, March 13, 2005
WILL PRODUCTIVITY SOLVE THE PROBLEM?
Note: Since actus missed this last time, I am reprinting it
I got into an argument with “actus” a while back over whether increased productivity would solve the Social Security problem. I argued that it wouldn’t, to which actus replied,
If we're twice as productive, we can, with the same number of workers, provide for twice as many retirees. Snap. No demographic bomb.
The reasoning here is that if worker are twice as productive, they will earn more, since the result of higher productivity is higher wages. This will mean more in payroll taxes, since payroll taxes are a tax on wages. With more payroll taxes, it will be easier to pay benefits.
I was going to explain why increased productivity might extend Social Security’s solvency temporarily but won’t solve the problem in the long run, but then I figured, why bother? After all, we won’t be collecting more in payroll taxes since wages won’t keep pace with productivity. How do I know that wages won’t keep pace with productivity? Because actus said so:
Oh, and don't fool yourself into thinking that wages keep pace with productivity. The assault on safety nets, labor and worker's rights in this country has made sure that isn't the case. Too bad heh?
I don’t know how actus will wiggle his way out of that. But it will be fun to watch him try.
. . .
|
. . .
|
