Category Archives: morality

More About Jobs

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Last week, in a presage of the nearby future, Alpha Natural Resources, a major coal producer, announced that it would be forced to reduce production by 16 million tons of coal per year, which will force the closure of eight mines in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and the elimination of some 1200 mining jobs—400 of these miners right away.

There are two reasons for this trouble.  One is long-run beneficial and is simply part of the creative destruction that a free economy goes through—quickly and with greater strength on the other side, including for those whose jobs are lost in the near-term, if the economy is free from government interference.

This reason is the improving technology that makes natural gas more cheaply extractable than coal.

But the other reason is government interference.  Kevin Crutchfield, ANR’s CEO, puts it plainly and simply at the feet of the government’s

regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.

And make no mistake about it; this is a deliberate policy.  Here’s what the then-and-now Democratic Presidential Candidate had to say about coal production back in 2008:

If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them[.]

It’s important to note that Obama’s policies really are anti-coal—and so, intended or not, anti-job—and not just ANR’s bad fortune or failure to operate cleanly.  As Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R, WV) points out,

The president’s extreme policies are crippling entire towns and making it harder for workers to find jobs.  Because of  the president’s War on Coal, thousands of West Virginia families have to worry about where their next paycheck is going to come from.

Is the EPA well-intended, but misguided?  Not a bit of it.  The timetable for meeting its new standards is virtually impossible to meet, and the standards themselves unattainable.

But it’s alright.  All those unemployed coal miners will have clean air.  Just no money for food on their families’ tables, or for rent/mortgage payments with which to keep roofs over their families’ heads.

Promises and Policies

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Fox News reports this from the CBO:

Nearly 6 million Americans—most of them in the middle class—will face a tax penalty for not carrying medical coverage once President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law is fully in place, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday…a 50 percent increase [over CBO’s report from last year].

Recall Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s solemn promise from his 2008 campaign, repeated constantly over these last four years.  He’s not going to raise taxes on any one of us with less than $200,000 of annual income, or on couples of us with a combined annual income less than $250,000.

The CBO said why this sharp increase had occurred, too.

…most of the increase in its estimate is due to changes in underlying projections about the economy, incorporating the effects of new federal legislation, as well as higher unemployment and lower wages.

How’re those several promises

  • that promised no-tax-increase
  • unemployment held under 8%
  • everyone pays their “fair share”
  • failure to achieve would produce a one-term presidency (yet he’s running for a second term)
  • and so on

and our “recovery” working out for you?

With all this government “help,” we’re having trouble building anything anymore.

So Now Our Government

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…is apologizing for the uniquely American value of free speech?  And we tax payers are paying for this shameful behavior with our own dollars!?

This from Fox News:

The American Embassy in Islamabad, in a bid to tamp down public rage over the anti-Islam film produced in the US, is spending $70,000 to air an ad on Pakistani television that features President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denouncing the video.

And beyond this appalling obsequiousness, there’s this blatant duck and cover [emphasis added]:

In the ad, Obama is seen talking about America’s tradition of religious tolerance and Clinton is seen saying that the US government had nothing to do with the video….

It’s not us—we in government didn’t do it.

It gets…better:

[State’s spokeswoman Victoria] Nuland said it was common practice to pay to air public service announcements in Pakistan and noted that the embassy there had done it at least one other time, in the aftermath of a deadly 2005 earthquake that hit the country.

So, here’s our government putting its apology for American values on a par with expressing sympathy for a tragedy.

Can we afford four more years of retreat and timidity concerning American rights and culture?

Splitting Up Major Banks?

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Because they’re too big to fail?  Because government bureaucrats are jealous of success?

Spiegel Online International‘s Martin Hesse and Christoph Pauly are reporting that the EU actually is considering just such a thought:

EU Commissioner Michel Barnier has asked experts to examine the possibility of splitting up major European banks to avoid future bailouts at taxpayers’ expense.

Certainly, the EU (and others making the same “argument”) couch the move in suitably plaintive terms:

Many banks are so big that no country can afford to allow them to fail.  This is why the government bailed out a number of financial companies starting in 2008, a move that allowed major banks like Deutsche Bank to grow even larger.

Yeah, that worked out well, didn’t it?  Aside from the growth possibilities for the governments’ favored few, how’s the recovery such bailouts were supposed to facilitate working out?

Then, Germany’s Monopolies Commission head, Daniel Zimmer, had this:

Taking a more-of-the-same approach in the treatment of major banks is not an option.  First of all, in contrast to 2008, many countries no longer have the resources to bail out banks.  Second, taxpayers are no longer willing to foot the bill for the financial industry’s mistakes.

Zimmer, though, is arguing for government mandating the structure of a bank to facilitate its government-ordered breakup in an economic crisis.  But he’s not listening to his own words.  Countries (including the US) don’t have the resources for bailouts, and taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill for any more bailouts.

Nor should they have to.  The government interventions into the market place in the US in the ’30s and since 2008 and the EU’s intervention since 2008 only prolonged the crises they were intended to alleviate.  This has cost the taxpayers far more than the bailouts themselves in lost jobs, lost incomes, higher personal costs (when they had any jobs/income at all with which to pay them—most especially in the ’30s and with an inflation time bomb ticking down from the US’ monetary “easing”) and from that, lost revenues for the respective governments.

And never mind the morality of protecting failure by not allowing a free market to punish it suitably.

Here’s a thought (are you listening, Barack?).  Work with me on this, it’s kinda conservative.  How about avoiding future bailouts of major banks by…not bailing them out?

Foreign Policy Competence in General

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Now the facts underlying the attacks on our embassy in Egypt and consulate in Libya, together with the murders of our personnel, are starting to emerge into the light.  Intelligence is now conceding that [emphasis mine]

the deadly attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda—with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.

In fact, it’s entirely possible that the erstwhile Gitmo prisoner, Sufyan Ben Qumu, may have led the attack on our consulate.  This was a terrorist that was transferred from Gitmo to Libyan custody—with the proviso that he be jailed there—during the Bush the Younger administration, and who then was promptly released by Libya’s then-MFWIC Muammar Qaddafi.

Moreover, Matt Olsen, National Counterterrorism Center Director, told the Senate’s hearing on the matter last Wednesday,

Yes, they [our Ambassador and three of his staff] were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.

Note that Wednesday testimony by Olsen.  That comes on the heels of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s claim, made through his press rep, Jay Carney, and his UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, of “do what?”  Just a short while prior to Olsen’s sworn testimony, ObamaCarney claimed that there was

no evidence of a preplanned or pre-meditated attack.  I made that clear last week, Ambassador Rice made that clear Sunday.

Indeed, Rice had busily made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows claiming that the attack in Benghazi was “spontaneous” and triggered by the Egyptian attack on our embassy there, which ostensibly was over a movie trailer that had been on YouTube for some months prior to this “spontaneity.”  See below concerning the Egyptian attack.

It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States.  The best information and the best assessment we have today is that this was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack. What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo.

But was this apparent contradiction simply the result of a continuing development of information?  Not so much.  State knew this much in real time: the Libyan president and his intelligence facility had already said the attack was premeditated.  Additionally, there was no major protest in Benghazi in the hours (!) before the attack—which went in from three different directions simultaneously.

Apparently, when the facts contradict your pre-determined outcome, it’s necessary to disregard those facts for as long as possible.

Meanwhile, over in Egypt….

The Department of Homeland Security knew two days before the attack on our Cairo embassy why it was going to occur and that it had nothing to do with a movie trailer.  And so, because DHS and State of course coordinate on such matters, State knew this two days ahead of the attacks, also.

DHS’ intel report, of which Fox News says they’ve obtained a copy, cites a Web site carrying a call to “sons of Egypt.”  DHS has also called this source fairly reliable.  The call demands the following:

Starting now, let the faithful among you form follow-up committees in charge of taking the necessary measures to force America to release the sheikh [the Blind Sheik, convicted and, so far, jailed for a separate terrorist attack]—even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it.

But no actionable intelligence existed, Obama has said.

Oh, and on the matter of the Blind Sheik’s release by our government, there’s this:

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has denied the possibility.

Let me say as clearly as I can there is no plan to release the blind sheikh, there is no plan. To my knowledge we have not been approached about it recently by any senior Egyptians.

Leaving aside the careful parsing in this claim, as Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is reputed to have said,

In statecraft, never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.

The potential for this terrorist’s release is especially disturbing since he’s in the hands of a President who began his administration with a World Apology Tour, and whose State Department preceded the attacks on our Egyptian embassy with an apology for a man exercising his free speech rights.

This is a shocking failure to perform.