Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Elsworth Monkton Toohey is the primary antagonist in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. Toohey is Rand’s personification of evil, the most active and self-aware villain in any of her novels. Toohey is a socialist, and represents the spirit of collectivism more generally. He styles himself as representative of the will of the masses, but his actual desire is for power over others. | Read More »
UPDATE: Holman Jenkins has a concise and insightful follow-up on this story in the WSJ. The economics and political communities have recently gone bonkers arguing over details of a study that concluded economic growth declines as national debt reaches 90 percent of annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). An acknowledged math error in the analysis is being used by Keynesians (borrowers and spenders) to undermine the | Read More »
Update April 27, 2013 – The political terrorist is exposed and backs off. Search for “FAA” today and you get a ream of reports claiming airport delays resulting from budget sequestration. Mr. Obama is actually responsible for these delays. Turns out the FAA 2013 budget is $15.9 billion and that the Department of Transportation that oversees the FAA claims FAA has to cut about $1.0 | Read More »
The world wide focus on banks and related government regulation is only relevant to the extent governments lie, borrow beyond their current income, and print money. This focus results from government fabricated value undermining confidence in value actually earned from work and free exchange. Understand clearly that bank regulations and government money printing have nothing really to do with human interchange (the fundamental force driving | Read More »
The European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and Cyprus announced an immediate and surprise tax of 6.75% to 9.95% on savings accounts that will be withdrawn on Tuesday morning (Monday is a holiday in Cyprus). Let’s see… supra-state regulators pull a cram down on Cyprus banks depositors without warning in order to get paid for the lax and incompetent actions of the supra-state regulators. This | Read More »
Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford gave a speech today at the opening of the 2013 Florida legislative session. Below are his personal views on the subject of whether Florida should accept the Medicare expansion that is part of Obamacare. His words are both true and painful. Perhaps one of the most challenging questions we’ll face this Session is whether we should expand Medicaid. Let me | Read More »
Our President sent me an email today (click here for the complete message) that contained this claim: “Because Republicans in Congress refused to compromise to close tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans, hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs or see their paycheck reduced, and middle class families will be hurt. Congress must join the President now to replace these cuts with a | Read More »
While Mr. Obama offers endless pontification in front of the cameras, claiming the moral superiority of his policies, the reality is that more and more citizens are the object of federal subsidies and policies that bribe their voting loyalties. What moral code is responsible for this reality? Mr. Obama is clearly and consciously in pursuit of the road to serfdom. Exactly who wishes to take | Read More »
USAToday asked its users on social media for one word that best describes the state of our union and compiled more than a hundred responses into a graphic that emphasizes the most used words. Click here for the results in image form. Four years down the drain and four more to go. What a shame. Regards, Pete Weldon americanstance.org
I submitted my public comment on this issue as included below and encourage all concerned to do the same. Click here to offer your comments on these proposed regulations. _______________________ February 8, 2013 TO: US Department of Health and Human Services I offer the following as a public comment concerning RIN 0938-AR42: Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act. The proposed regulations | Read More »
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Deputy Director of Policy and Regulation at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (that title is 156 characters long) held a conference call on February 1, 2013 to announce revised proposed rules for socializing the cost of female contraceptives as those rules impact religious organizations. Per the Associated Press, the recording of | Read More »
Excerpt, Associated Press article January 31, 2013: ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek doctors, port workers and public transport staff in the country’s capital walked off the job Thursday in strikes against deeply unpopular austerity measures that have seen incomes slashed as the country struggles to emerge from a deep financial crisis. The country’s main unions also announced a nationwide general strike for Feb. 20, the | Read More »
Prior to performing a verse of America the Beautiful at Mr. Obama’s recent 2nd inaugural, singer/song writer James Taylor appeared on the Charlie Rose show and offered some interesting commentary on “corporate” America. Watch and listen here (his political commentary begins at about 28:35). As a former singer /song writer I greatly admire James Taylor’s music and his career. What struck me as odd, however, | Read More »
The opinion piece by Bjorn Lomborg in the January 24, 2013 edition of the Wall Street Journal begs the question, is Mr. Obama a self righteous ideologue with attendant bad judgment or is he knowingly lying to the world (not just the American public) in a Presidential inaugural address? Climate-Change Misdirection Fear-mongering exaggeration about effects of global warming distracts us from finding affordable and effective | Read More »
Mr. Obama’s second inaugural address has been characterized as “testifying to the power of government” and “a bold defense of his liberal agenda.” Perhaps Mr. Obama should have more honestly noted that the power wielded by government compels some people to redistribute the product of their work to others. These others then have a vested financial interest in electing politicians who write more laws compelling | Read More »
The United States Consumer Protection Bureau (CFBP) is a new agency accountable to no one, created by the Dodd-Frank financial legislation of 2010, and conceived by our long time Fairy Godmother and new Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. I apologize if I seem a bit cynical and despondent at having to pay for a Federal agency whose primary purpose is to require providers of credit | Read More »
Mr. Obama publicly and accurately defined the essence of our entitlement/fiscal problems in his speech of April 12, 2011. It is clear that he fully understands the issues. In this speech Mr. Obama demagogues the Ryan entitlement reform plan, while claiming the power of government will squeeze suppliers to reduce health care spending, proposing to reduce military spending, and insisting on increased tax rates on | Read More »
When discussing Mr. Obama with a friend I found myself summarizing his Progressive agenda in what I know realize is the essential reality, “He diminishes us all.” Private individuals and businesses are now making investment decisions based on the reality of government control of education, banking, health care, power generation, energy, and transportation. You can argue about the relative extent of control by industry but | Read More »
Alexander Burns wrote an article about The Club for Growth for politico.com on December 22, 2012. I have supported The Club for Growth in the recent past and want to share my perspective on the reality compared to some of Mr. Burns’s reporting. The Club for Growth focuses on candidates and policies at the Federal level. Those candidates and policies must promote economic freedom and | Read More »
I laughed out loud yesterday when I saw the flashing banner on CNBC: “Countdown to the Fiscal Cliff: 11 days.” Even the financial media is more interested in selling advertising than in informing the public. The “fiscal cliff” is a fake construct created by Mr. Obama and the US Congress as a result of prior failed budget “negotiations.” Mr. Obama provides his routine righteous pronouncements | Read More »
Grant Williams, chief investment strategist for Mauldin Economics, offers this piece about the Fed’s money printing. The Fed has officially tied continual money printing to the unemployment rate on the presumption that the two are things are related. That is, they believe that if you make the money appear inexpensive enough people will borrow it and deploy it productively in the economy. From the Fed | Read More »
Mr. Obama is asking each of us how a $2,000 increase in taxes would impact us. Such an increase would occur for an average middle class family if the current tax structure reverts to pre-2004 law on January 1, 2013 without new changes agreed to by Congress and Mr. Obama. Here is my offering. Dear Mr. Obama, To date you have ignored our unsustainable entitlement | Read More »
UPDATE March 11, 2013 – Read Bjorn Lomborg’s take on these issues. I am all for the private sector investing in new car technology. The realities of taxpayer funding of electric cars, however, demonstrate ignorant and incompetent leadership. It is one thing to have a realistic vision of the future and another to simply waste billions of our money on pipe dreams. The circumstances surrounding | Read More »
OK, the empty chair has been re-elected and we still have… $16,000,000,000,000 in debt. In excess of $1,000,000,000,000 in new borrowing each year to finance the deficit, adding to the debt. Over 20,000,000 Americans unemployed or underemployed. Entitlement liabilities approaching bankruptcy. A President who has intentionally done nothing about the above and has never articulated any meaningful plan to do anything, except borrow more money. | Read More »
Viewing Clint Eastwood’s RNC speech with a couple of weeks to reflect confirms his common sense observations as a citizen. The chair is empty. The August employment report from the US Department of Labor showed more of the same lack of response we have seen for the past several years with the number of “unemployed persons” at 12.5 million, the number of persons “employed part | Read More »
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