You’ve Made Enough Money

Posted on by
Reply

The New Jersey governor says so, and he wants to raise the income tax on the rich and the not-yet rich—those making more than $1 million per annual year*—by almost a full per centage point, to 10.75%.

Because, he argues.

So far, even the Progressive-Democrat-run legislature is demurring from that move, but the governor seems poised to veto a budget that doesn’t have the tax increase.

Give it up, the Progressive-Democrat governor says. I have better uses for your money than you do, the Progressive-Democrat governor says.

 

*Think $1 million is a lot?  It is, but not so much in Trenton.  On a cost of living basis, that would be worth $1.4 million in northern Texas.

The Progressive-Democratic Party

Posted on by
Reply

…in microcosm.  Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for a Denver, CO, city council seat says openly that she wants to replace our capitalist economy and “usher in” “community ownership” of all property by any means necessary.

The Progressive-Democratic Party is silent on her goal, and by that silence demonstrates quite clearly that Party favors this push.

Keep this in mind in November 2020.

The Fed’s Market-Chasing

Posted on by
Reply

They’re at it again, or talking like it.

Federal Reserve officials meet Tuesday recognizing they may need to cut interest rates should the economic outlook darken. The question is whether that moment has arrived or if they need more information before deciding.
…
The choices…are between cutting rates now if they see the economic outlook worsening or holding off and cutting next month if the picture grows darker.

No, the question proceeds from the false premise that the Fed should cut rates, with its partially false alternative that the Fed should hold rates steady for a time.

The Fed is compounding its error:

Policy makers are considering whether their short-term benchmark rate, which has been in a range of 2.25% to 2.5% this year, is curbing economic growth more than they expected, especially if uncertainty over US trade policy chills business investment and weakens corporate profits.

The Fed is chasing the market and moving too far inside the underlying economy’s cycle. There’s no reason for the Fed to cut its benchmark rate, and not yet any reason to hold its rates steady. The Fed’s mandate is to hold prices stable (its second mandate of full employment is a natural outcome of the strong and growing economy that results from stable prices and need not be considered here).  There’s nothing in there about any obligation to take steps to “manage” the economy’s growth; indeed, that’s a political decision from fiscal policy (even assuming an economy should be managed by any aspect of government) and beyond the ken of any central bank.

On the contrary, the Fed has defined a stable price regime as one with 2% inflation, more or less (the particular rate, within limits, is of little importance). Accordingly, the Fed needs to set its benchmark rates at levels consistent with that inflation rate; the Fed isn’t there, yet—hence no rate cuts would be useful. Once arriving at those historic rates, then the Fed should hold them steady, and then (again I say) sit down and be quiet.

A Party of Bigots?

Posted on by
Reply

This article is “triggered” by a segment last Thursday on Fox News Overtime. A panel including otherwise respected Democratic (note: not Progressive-Democratic) pollster Doug Schoen, the show’s host Harris Faulkner and another lady (sorry, her name escapes me). The panel was discussing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (D, NY) despicable, and repeated, equation of the detention centers along our border wherein we house illegal aliens pending their disposition with the World War II concentration camps used explicitly for rounding up Jews, Romani, and others—seizing them from their own homes for the purpose—and exterminating them (with a view to carrying out genocide of the Jews in particular).  Mind another distinction: the folks housed in those detention centers are free, given some associated paperwork, to leave at any time, provided they leave to go home. The folks “housed” in the Holocaust concentration camps were not free to go anywhere except to die.

Schoen had the grace to be embarrassed by the behavior of what he still refers to as his party.

Here’s the thing, though.  The Progressive-Democratic Party has refused to condemn either Ocasio-Cortez for her bigoted remarks or those remarks.  Jerry Nadler (D, NY), House Judiciary Committee Chairman, openly supports Ocasio-Cortez’ remarks:

One of the lessons from the Holocaust is “Never Again”—not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don’t callout such inhumanity right in front of us.

Nadler’s refusal to condemn Ocasio-Cortez or her remarks speaks loudly and clearly, but there’s more to his tweet.  His naked distortion of what’s going on in those detention centers and Nadler’s equation of that with what went on in those Holocaust concentration camps is a clear demonstration of Nadler’s personal bigotry.

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I, VT) gave a CNN interview in which he insisted (as cited by Haaretz)

“I didn’t use that terminology,” noted Sanders, subsequently repeating twice in the interview that he had “not used that word.”

He went on to equate the detention centers with the Holocaust’s concentration camps.  Notice that: Sanders quibbled with Ocasio-Cortez’ terminology, but he wholly agrees with her claims, thereby exposing his own bigotry.

The rest of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Presidential candidates—every single one of them—have stayed carefully silent on Ocasio-Cortez’ bigoted remarks.  Those two dozen candidates for the highest office in our nation therewith actively demonstrate their agreement with Ocasio-Cortez and thereby demonstrate their own overt bigotry.

This comes on the heels of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s refusal to censure Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) over her bigoted, anti-Semitic remarks.  Party refused even to call her out or condemn her words. In the end, Party passed a carefully saccharine resolution that said, “We don’t like mean words.”

This is of a piece with the Progressive-Democratic Party’s effort, not just to divide us, but to partition us with their racist and sexist identity politics.

I have to wonder what it will take for Schoen to leave the Progressive-Democratic Party.

No—the Progressive-Democratic Party is not a party of bigots, it is an institution of bigotry, and we have to take care next year lest our nation fall under its sway.

Russia Gets Nervous?

Posted on by
Reply

That’s the thesis of James Marson and Thomas Grove in their recent Wall Street Journal article.  It seems the US and allies have been running a number of training exercises in the Baltic Sea and in eastern Europe, and we’ve agreed to plus up (trivially) the number of soldiers we station in Poland—at Poland’s request.  This is making Russia nervous.

Mikhail Barabanov, of the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of Systems and Technologies:

Russia sees the exercise as a preparation to deploy large NATO forces across the Baltic region[.]

Given Russian acquisitive aggressions in Georgia and Ukraine, its cyber attacks against each of the Baltic States, and its movement of tactical nuclear weapons close to its western border and into Kaliningrad, among other threatening moves, such a defensive redeployment seems only reasonable.

Now Moscow is complaining that such defensive moves and such training for defense is “destabilizing the region.”

This is nonsense.  It’s also dishonest.  It’s Russia projecting, assuming that because it has nefarious intentions, those preparing against those intentions must have their own.

Of course, if Russia has no aggressive intensions toward other nations, including those on its border, Russia has nothing about which to worry from those other nations—including those on its border.