Category: Current Affairs (Page 75 of 78)

For an idiotic comparison of the division between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, who spend their spare time killing one another, stealing aid (largely given by Israel) and plotting against the ‘Zionist entity’, and different parties in Israeli politics, whose members are often personal friends despite their political differences, and whose differences are talked over in a civilised way in a fully democratic society.

‘Israeli Divisions’ are not what is making peace-making harder, but Hamas’ determination, repeatedly expressed in both words and actions, to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

And don’t let the truth get in the way.

Via Michelle Malkin, this story of Ashley Judd’s appearance in a Widlife Action Fund video, complaining about the culling of wolves in Alaska.

The video portrays Sarah Palin as bloodthirsty and unconcerned about the environment. But this is exactly the opposite of the truth. The culling operation is designed to protect other widlife such as moose and caribou in areas where there are high wolf populations.

This is a tragic waste of a life and a tragic loss for Piotr Stanczak’s family.

Piotr Stanczak was an engineer. Thank goodness for the courage of people like him, who in spite of the dangers, continue to travel to Muslim countries to help build infrastructure, and with it, hope for the future.

In the US in January.

Too soon to blame Obama? Well maybe. This crisis is a direct result of intervention in domestic lending markets by the Carter and Clinton administrations. Bush’s attempts to get more accountability from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were blocked. But no, that’s not Obama’s fault.

When I heard the story of this explosion in unemployment on the TV news last night, the reporter offered her opinion that we would see a change once the ‘stimulus’ package got started. I agree there is likely to be a change, but I doubt it will be positive.

Increased unemployment levels are indicative of a lack of business confidence. If business owners believe things are going to be get better, they don’t lay people off. Good staff are hard to find, and take time and money to train.

One of the reasons I thought Obama’s election would be a mistake was his utter lack of experience in running anything. The stimulus package reflects this lack of understanding of both business practice and basic economics. In these circumstances it is hard for the business-owners who power the economy to feel anything other than concern.

In this case, on Afghanistan. As with Gitmo, and his cabinet candidates, and … and …  it might have been better to have done the research and asked the questions before stating the policies which were part of his election platform, and which are now being discovered to be unworkable.

In both foreign policy and economic policy, a careful assessment of evidence is essential if results are going to be anything other than disastrous. Wishful thinking and ideology are not a basis for sound policy.

Greedy or stupid policiticans, probably… 

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gets one thing right in his 7,000 word reiteration of the destructive Whitlam era philosophy that big government, big spending and high taxes are good. The thing he gets right is this: ‘Soft or hard, protectionism is a sure-fire way of turning recession into depression, as it exacerbates the collapse in global demand.’

Virtually everything else in the essay is wrong, and can be shown to be wrong. Rudd blames ‘extreme capitalism and unrestrained greed’ for the present crisis. This is utterly counter-factual.

The cause of the present crisis was do-gooding intervention in domestic home loan markets by successive US Democrat administrations.

In essence, starting with Jimmy Carter, those administrations offered incentives to lenders to give home loans to people who would not have qualified under normal lending criteria (or penalties to lenders who did not). This is the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage market, which consisted of giving loans to people who could not afford to repay them.

If you assume (as seems likely) a complete lack of understanding of basic economics in those who formulated this policy, you can allow that it may have been well-intentioned. In fact it should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain that it would leave those to whom the loans were given worse off in the long run, because they were likely not only to lose their homes, but any money they put into them, and their credit rating.

It should also have been obvious to anyone with half a brain that such a system could not be maintained. You cannot continue indefinitely to lend billions of dollars to people who have no chance of repaying it without eventually having a serious impact on the whole economic system.

In 2001 the Bush administration tried to get real answers from the Government Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie May and Freddie Mac) which underwrote those loans, and to ensure proper lending criteria were in place. These efforts were defeated by a consortium of Democrat representatives and senators, many of whom were in receipt of large donations from those bodies.

John Pilla on publicopiniononline.com has more details.

After Geithner, Daschle, Richardson, Killefer, et al, further consideration of Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis has been postponed because her husband ‘only yesterday paid off tax liens, some of which had been pending for up to 16 years’.’

What is it with Obama’s team and taxes? Is forgetting to pay your taxes part of the whole ‘wealth redistribution’ thing?

‘At the the end of the process the nominee is asked one final catch-all question: Is there anything that could cause you, your family, or the President embarrassment if it became public?
 
Either Obama and his nominees aren’t easily embarrassed, or the vetters have tin ears the size of satellite dishes.’

Either these people are dishonest, or they are incompetent, or they are just plain stupid. Whichever it is, events so far hardly inspire confidence in the incoming administration.