State of the Union day after

View 710 Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The State of the Union was painful. I had intended to watch and make notes, but I didn’t. I did watch the whole thing, to my – I was going to say astonishment, but I can’t say I was really surprised. On reflection, what else could President Obama do, other than announce that he would not be a candidate for President as Lyndon Johnson did? Like Jimmy Carter he has few choices. He can’t run on his record. All during the speech in which he told of what he was going to do, I kept wondering if he would ever address the question of what he has done. He pretty well didn’t. Much of his speech was nearly identical to last year’s state of the union. It’s all going to be great when you finally get it.

He does claim credit for the demise of bin Laden. Considering the time it took him to make the decision to send in the forces, it wasn’t as heroic an achievement as it might have been, and one can question the kill order – would it not have been better to take him prisoner and interrogate him? But that’s another debate for another time. He can have credit for bin Laden.

He called for a rebuilding of America’s infrastructure. To the extent that this is a federal matter, surely he was given enough in bailout and stimulus funds to have done that? I note that there was no mention of shovel-ready jobs this time. He told us that he had saved General Motors, how GM was now the world’s most successful car company. I suspect there are others who will debate that assessment. His salvation of General Motors involved confiscation of the equity of bond holders and turning that over to his political allies, particularly the unions whose past achievements had driven the company to bankruptcy and beyond in the first place.

He called for more programs, to the point at which I was ready to yell “What did you do with the last $Trillion we gave you?”

He can’t run on his record.

Ms. Pelosi is now saying that she has the real dirt on Newt Gingrich which she will release at a time and place of her own choosing, and it will be enough to finish Gingrich. It would be a mistake to think that this has not been coordinated with the White House.

Obama can’t run on his record. He has to come up with other reasons to convince the American people to return him to office. It won’t be because of his accomplishments.

Jerry,

Lately I’ve grown so tired of politics, [I know, you tell me despair is a sin] but after reading a couple paragraphs on cnbc’s decidedly biased website about the state of the Union campaign speech by President Obama I have 2 questions to ask you:

What do you think of the statement that dividend income should be treated differently then ‘earned’ income–haven’t taxes already been paid on that income already and should the risk taken in investing in the growth of the economy be encouraged & rewarded?

Also it seems like you don’t send out subscription notices for renewing here or has my time perception been skewed by my years in the desert?

Take care

Please Publish the 4th Tran book!

Alan

I should send out renewal notices, but I don’t like spamming people. I do think everyone who has recently subscribed or renewed.

What Obama called for in the State of the Union was an increase in capital gains and dividend taxes. Capital gains and dividend income comes from previously taxed income put at risk investment. If you want less of something, fine or tax people for doing it. If you want fewer people investing, raise taxes on investment income.

Warren Buffet’s income is from capital gains and dividends, all of which comes from money which has already been taxed at least once. His secretary’s income will be wages, and since she is not likely to be underpaid, it is very likely to be a great deal higher than the capital gains tax rate. Raising the capital gains rate on money owned free and clear will cause the owners of that money to seek other places to invest. There are no surprises there.

Mitt Romney inherited essentially nothing, so every cent he has comes from money he has earned and paid taxes on. Confiscating everything he has would not greatly reduce the national debt. Fining people for being successful and using the confiscated money to bail out the unsuccessful would not seem to be a very good investment strategy.

What is fair play?

It may be unfair that Romney, who is younger than I am, is so much richer than I am; is this fair? Is it fair that he has more money than an Occupy Wall Street camper? Even if the Occupy camper is a trust fund heir who doesn’t have to work? Should success be rewarded or punished?

Should Penny earn as much money as Sheldon?

There are joint LAPD and US military training exercises going on in Los Angeles. I have mail from people worried about this as a black helicopter operation, possibly an upcoming military coup, and it is no coincidence that it took place during a State of the Union address.

Back in the old Civil Defense days, this sort of thing happened all the time, as it should, so that civil defense, national guard, and regular military could practice communication including language (“Cover me” means an entirely different thing to a rifle squad than to a civilian police officer). If I were in charge we would have Civil Defense again, FEMA would be abolished, and there would be such exercises at regular intervals – including involving the Boy Scouts on Emergency Preparedness, as we used to do when I was involved in Scouting.

The whole thing ends tomorrow night.

Of course there are also those thinking these ops are just another Hollywood set location in action: if you think that, look again. Technology has greatly advanced and there are really good light amplifying cameras, but you can’t do production movies in the dark – and indeed, even if you didn’t need the gaffers and best boys, union rules would insist that they be there anyway. Even Hollywood isn’t exempt from either physics or the Iron Law.

The Somali gangsters – for some reason called pirates – who had kidnapped an American and a Danish aid worker (they had volunteered to go help clear out minefields in civilian areas) and held them for ransom have good reason to regret doing that. Actually, the gangsters – I refuse to call them pirates since none of this has to do with sea or river transportation – are mostly dead. It was a grievous lesson for them; we can hope they profited from it. Whether they do or not, it is probable that other Somali gangsters and pirates will draw the right conclusions from this.

President Obama will take credit for this. He should; but it also removes one campaign issue from the election. There is no one running for the office of President who won’t approve of this sort of thing.

If you have not read this, it is worth your time. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/images/pdf/mccaffrey-nbc-iran-nukes-and-oil-january-122012.pdf