Deconstructing the American Dream

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Steve Maley

I sat down this morning to write about teachers and bridges, about motivation and inspiration. Upon rereading the President’s Roanoke remarks, however, my focus shifted away from my planned topic of entrepreneurial outrage (“You didn’t build that!”). Reading deeper, a more alarming theme emerged:

Now, we don’t need more top-down economics.  I’ve got a different view.  I believe that the way you grow the economy is from the middle out.  (Applause.)  I believe that you grow the economy from the bottom up.  I believe that when working people are doing well, the country does well.  (Applause.) …

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That’s how we funded the GI Bill.  That’s how we created the middle class.  That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That’s how we invented the Internet.  That’s how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea.  You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.  (Applause.)

So, contrary to what you may have learned in your reactionary history class in high school, the middle class was not an organic outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution, or the coming-of-age of the mighty American Economy. No, the middle class is a policy construct of government, at least in Obama’s perception.

One thing about this President, he telegraphs his blows. He tells us precisely what he’s about, then he sets about doing it. Continue reading →

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Who Cut the Kim Chees? #dprk #rsrh

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Steve Maley

AFP/Getty Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (L) looks at President of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea Kim Yong-nam (R) during a military parade. There are unconfirmed rumors about Kim Jong Un’s plans for his government.

“Next time order it mild instead of ‘Korean-hot’.”

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Echoes of the Past

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Steve Maley

December, 1935. Not so long ago, actually…

According to the tables which we have assembled it is our estimate that 4% of the American people own 85% of the wealth of America and that over 70% of the people of America don’t own enough to pay the debts that they owe. How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what’s intended for 9/10 of the people to eat? The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub he ain’t got no business with.

Now how you going to feed the balance of the people? What’s Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon gonna do with all that grub? They can’t eat it. They can’t wear the clothes, they can’t live in the house. Give ’em a yacht! Give ’em a palace! Send them to Reno and give them a new wife, if that’s what they want. But when they have everything on God’s living earth that they can eat and they can wear and they can live in, … Then we got to call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellon and Mr. Rockefeller back and say come back here. Put that stuff back on this table here, some of that that you took away from here that you don’t need. Leave something else for the American people to consume. …

We’re not going to destroy the Gulf Refining Company! We’re not going to destroy the Standard Oil Company! But we’re going to say that the limit of any one man’s stock ownership in the Standard Oil Company is from $3-$5 million for that individual, and that the balance of the people of America own the balance of what the Standard Oil Company is worth.

Alright. (Applause.) Then we start from the bottom, that the 25 or more million American families shall have a homestead, a home and the comforts of a home, including an automobile, and a radio, the things it takes in that house to live on. We say to America, 125 million: none shall be too big, none shall be too poor. None shall work too much, none shall be idle. No luxurious mansions empty, none walking the streets. None impoverished, none in pestilence. None in want. But in the land blessed by the smile of the Creator, with everything to be consumed, to be eaten, to be worn, that America will become a land, sharing the fruits of the land, not for the favored few, not to satisfy greed, but that all may live in the land in which the Lord has provided an abundance sufficient for the luxury and convenience of the people in general.

What, no cell phones?

Posted in Louisiana, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Grand Jury indicts Lavergne for Shunick murder plus 1 cold case from 1999

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Steve Maley

http://theadvocate.com/home/3380433-125/lavergne-indicted-in-deaths-of

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I Do Not Like It, Uncle Sam! I Do Not Like Your Clean Green Scam!

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Steve Maley

With apologies to Theodore Geisel

20120718-205421.jpgWill government ever learn? Every time they try to fool the market with some cockamamie attempt at central planning, they create a discontinuity in the market. These discontinuities can often be exploited for gain. That’s when the jackals rush in.

The EPA runs a program that is supposed to ensure 36 billion gallons of biofuels are blended into the gasoline supply by 2022. Every gallon produced earns something called a renewable identification number, or RINs, which are then sold to and traded among refiners and other “obligated parties” to help meet their annual biofuel quotas.

[Source. WSJ link requires subscription.]

Rodney Hailey owned a company called Clean Green Fuels, based in Baltimore. Clean Green Fuels earned EPA registration as a biofuel producer, despite the fact that it owned no biofuel manufacturing capacity. Clean Green Fuels could sell the RINs, to the tune of $9 million, but there was no biofuel to back them up. Hailey used the illicit proceeds on such necessities as private jets, expensive jewelry and a Rolls-Royce.

Nor was it alone. In the biodiesel market—whose size is second only to corn ethanol—the EPA itself estimates that some 140 million RINs are fraudulent or otherwise invalid, and the true number may amount to as much as 12% of the biodiesel “supply.”

Hailey has been convicted on 42 counts of fraud, but here’s where the story takes an odd turn.

The EPA is punishing the companies Hailey scammed.

Continue reading →

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The Grascals @ The Manship Theater

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Steve Maley

July 17, 2012

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There’s sand in them thar hills! #rsrh

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Steve Maley

Frac sand boom creates prosperity, shovel-ready jobs, and “sand millionaires” in America’s sandbox, but generates controversy

– AEIdeas

“I spent the weekend along the Mississippi River in Buffalo City, Wisconsin, about 120 miles south of Minneapolis-St. Paul (across the river from Winona, Minnesota), where there is a growing controversy in sand-rich southeastern Minnesota and west-central Wisconsin (“America’s Sandbox”) about mining for frac sand (the silica sand used for hydraulic fracturing). While starting my drive this morning to the Minneapolis airport, I took pictures of the two signs above that help tell the story of the controversy.

“On one side are the frac sand supporters (“dig, baby, dig”), which include dozens of new “sand millionaires” who have reaped huge financial windfalls by selling or leasing their land for sand mining, or by selling their mineral rights for amounts typically exceeding $100,000 (in addition to royalties for each ton of frac sand mined). Frac sand mining has further stimulated local economies in Minnesota and Wisconsin by bringing many high-paying jobs (each frac sand mine employs between 10 and 20 people, while 40 to 50 people work at a typical sand processing plant, and dozens of truck drivers are hired to haul frac sand to processing plants and rail terminals), raising household incomes, bringing millions of dollars of new capital investments, and pumping revenue into area businesses and local governments.”

Posted in Economy, Energy | Leave a comment

Mrs. Kim Jong Un? #rsrh

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Steve Maley

Daily NK – Kim ‘Wife’ Mystery Deepens
http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01700&num=9517

“Yesterday, scenes of the two visiting a kindergarten were broadcast, although again the woman was not mentioned in the narration. However, not only her presence but her prominent position in the images has lead to fresh speculation that she is the North Korean leader’s wife.

“One anonymous South Korean government official explained that given her positioning in the party, standing or seated close beside the leader but in front of other party members, it is ‘highly likely that she’s his wife and Kim is actually married.'”

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North Korean Bigwig Sacked #rsrh

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Steve Maley

Maybe he didn’t clap vigorously enough at the faux-Disney performance.

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01700&num=9516

DPRK Regime Heavyweight Lee Felled

“In a move that has caught the international community by surprise, Chosun People’s Army Chief of Staff V. Mar Lee Young Ho (aka Ri Yong Ho), someone seen as one of Kim Jong Eun’s closest regime allies, was relieved of all his official duties by a meeting of the Party Central Committee Politburo on Sunday.

“In a short article released this morning, Chosun Central News Agency cited illness as the reason behind the removal of the 70-year old Lee.

“The move is a shock because Lee had been one of the most successful figures in the regime following Kim Jong Eun’s formal emergence as the successor to Kim Jong Il. In addition to being Chief of Staff, he had been a member of the Politburo and its elite 5-man Standing Committee, and vice-chairman of the Party Central Military Commission. All were positions he had been promoted into since the 3rd Workers’ Party Delegates’ Conference on September 28th, 2010, the day after he was promoted to vice marshal. “

Posted in DPRK | 1 Comment

Bain Kryptonite

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Steve Maley

Don’t be silly. Mitt Romney’s not a superhero (not mine, anyway).

But when it comes to the economy, the presumptive Republican nominee is the Man of Steel compared to the Democratic incumbent.  So far, the Obama Administration has been a 3-1/2 year experiment to reconfirm that Keynesian Economics is deserving of history’s dustbin.

To the weavers of a narrative, invulnerability is a real problem. Ask the creators of Superman.  They needed a plot device to trump the advantage of an infinitely powerful character. The plot device need not be explained by the laws of physics or the natural world; rather it is the MacGuffin by which the reader actively suspends disbelief for the sake of the narrative.  The exchange goes something like this:

Reader: I’m willing to believe that Superman threw the moon past Pluto, dove to the center of the Sun and then flew backwards around the Earth faster than the speed of light to turn back time. How am I to believe he is captive in Lex Luthor’s laboratory?

DC Comics writer: Kryptonite!

Reader: That makes sense.

Continue reading →

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