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POPSLogic? Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools. A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery. Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born( in perpetuity.)
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POPSLobbyist Reactions to Obama Victory Roll Call's Kate Ackley reports on reactions from Washington's advocacy industry. A notable: Dan Mica, a former congressman who now runs the National Credit Union Association. “They’re talking about having complete and total transparency in advocacy," he says, "That’s tremendous."
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POPSBlaming the Victim It seems it's become de rigueur for the Conservatives to blame the victims these days. IMO, it shows how out of touch these conservative pundits truly are. BTW, for those not familiar, the SPLC is a watchdog organization dedicated to exposing hate groups and suing them out of business. They've done impressive work particularly against the KKK and the American Aryan party.
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POPS Americans Believe Entrepreneurs Will Revive Economy Because they understand the role of entrepreneurs as a creator of jobs, Americans are looking to business leaders instead of government, by a two-to-one margin, to lead the way out of the economic mess. A majority of people (56 percent) trust small business owners to guide the economy, compared with only 14 percent who trust members of Congress. While, more than 60 percent of people surveyed support the federal government increasing its regulation of the market, more than a third think Congress is in danger of creating too much regulation as it reacts to this crisis. "History has repeatedly demonstrated that new companies and entrepreneurship are the way to bolster a flagging economy. The American people understand this," Schramm said.
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POPSThe Swill Is Gone Government regulation? How awful! We should never mess with the business of business! The system will alway correct itself without our intervention! Government is the problem, not the solution!
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POPSFinancial crisis the result of Reaganomics A brief history of economic policies since the New Deal, and why we've had crises like this ever since Reagan. "Obama is correct that the best opportunity for making the economy work for all Americas is to fire those who made up the current rules of the game."
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POPSCrisis, is a friend of the "State" Crisis is the friend of the State. The politicians are desperate to be seen as "showing leadership," so we're surely in for a new round of government interventions. Watch for the equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. There'll be much posturing about how the new regulations "will keep this from ever happening again," but that's more nonsense because the root problem is not lack of regulation. It's government social engineering of the housing market, which will be unchanged. This is the path to stagnation and poverty. As Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek taught, markets are too complicated for planners to know enough to plan them. The relevant information, scattered unspoken among billions of market participants, is beyond the bureaucrats' reach. We do need protection from reckless businessmen. But there is only one way to provide that: market discipline. That means: no privileges, and no bailouts.
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POPSThe Real Culprits - Part Three While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge. Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.
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POPSWhat Should Uncle Sam Do? I like the sound of the phrase "socialized capitalism"..... Every time someone mentions that there should be more regulation of the greedy corporations, some ditto-head conservative yells "Socialism!". I gues they would rather have "Socialized Capitalism" in which the CEO's of these large corporations get to go home each year with millions of dallars in income, while the rest of us bail out their failed businesses.....nothing but greed and corruption!
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POPSThe Fed And Investment Banks
That is why large commercial banks, which have open account obligations to thousands of other banks, creditors and counterparties, can be said to be too big to fail. Applying the too-big-to-fail label to investment banks reflects a serious misunderstanding of how their business model differs from that of a commercial bank. In order to sign their agreement, the Fed and the SEC had to ignore a request by two powerful senators – Christopher Dodd and Richard Shelby, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate banking committee – who asked the two agencies in a letter last week to respect the prerogative of Congress to assign responsibilities to regulatory agencies. Instead, the two agencies have created a fait accompli that takes the question out of the hands of Congress. If Congress wants to have anything important to say about the regulation of the financial markets and the liabilities to be borne by the taxpayers, it should step in now to nullify this agreement or limit it
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POPSFingerprint Registry In Housing Bill!!! But this fingerprint database, in addition to the privacy violations, might create a host of new problems of mortgage fraud. Identity theft involving fingerprints is becoming a major concern among data security experts. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of the problem mortages were handled by employees with no criminal record. Rather, this seem like another thoughtless idea that lets politicians brag that they are “getting tough” about a particular problem.
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POPSMandates for Change New homes, automobiles, and appliances will have to meet design standards set by government. Specific technologies, such as compact fluorescent bulbs, will be required. These regulations will tend to raise prices to consumers. Politicians will want to avoid blame for this, so they will look for ways to force companies to subsidize low- and middle-income consumers. Thus, during the next administration's second term we can expect to see price control mechanisms enacted for many energy-related products and services. Many Americans will welcome the regulatory state. Many others will accommodate it. Only a minority of us will oppose it. Somewhere down the road, as people see the indignity of the many intrusions and the adversity of the consequences, I hope that there will be a backlash. Otherwise, if the era of mandates emerges as I fear it will, then the engine of capitalism in America may run out of the fuel of competition.
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POPSWSJ's take on NetNeutrality Any legislation looks like regulation from their point of view. An interesting article but it misses the point that their is a rift between the telcos and the web2 companies and leaving this up to them to decide completely ignores the "users".
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POPSSchool-lunch beef supplier found violating health regs Nasty news about the U.S. beef business. Animal rights activists find employees of a major California operation forcing "downer" cows into the slaughterhouse, sometimes using a forklift to transport cows too sick to walk. 143 million pounds of meat are recalled, much of which had been sold to school lunch programs.
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POPSThe Biggest Big-Government Conservative Candidate Most of the leading Republicans running for president show some support for Bush's ideology, but no other candidate so completely embodies it. As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee dramatically increased state spending. During his two-term tenure, spending increased by more than 65 percent — at three times the rate of inflation. The number of government workers increased by 20 percent, and the state's debt services increased by nearly $1 billion. Huckabee financed his spending binge with higher taxes. Under his leadership, the average Arkansan's tax burden increased 47 percent, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, including increases in the state's gas, sales, income, and cigarette taxes. He raised taxes on everything from groceries to nursing home beds.
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