As Another Company Moves Away

(Hat tip: KimR) - After the 2008 death of the founder of Carl’s Jr. — the ubiquitous California fast-food restaurant chain — the Orange County Register published an obituary that captured the one-time spirit of the state: “Carl Karcher, the Ohio farm boy with an eighth-grade education who turned his $326 investment in a hot dog stand into a multimillion-dollar fast food empire, died Friday afternoon. He was 90.” For decades, this was a place where anyone could earn a fortune. Read more at the American Spectator Read More......

Do Recent Events Show the World Is Falling Apart, or Reaffirm Timeless Principles?

By Timothy H. Lee - To some people, recent events suggest that the world as we know it is falling apart. ✧ But think of it another way. Paradoxically, today’s events simply reaffirm timeless principles. Moreover, they reassure us that recommitment to those principles offers a remedy. ✧ Consider: The nation’s credit rating just declined for the first time in history. The floor suddenly dropped from stock markets. Unrestrained rioters terrorized England and set it aflame. Moammar Gadhaffi remains in power, months after President Obama promised that the Libyan military effort would be measured in “days, not weeks.” ✧ Can anyone truly consider these events surprising, given the public policies that led to them? Only if one dismisses the laws of economics, morality, physics and human nature. Read more at Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF)... Read More......

Hennessey: Why I oppose the Gang of Six plan

If you want to know more about the Gang of Six Plan, Karl Rove recommends the following articles by Keith Hennessey at Your guide to American economic policy:

Understanding the Gang of Six plan (long article)
Why I oppose the Gang of Six plan (17 reasons/shorter article)

Keith Hennessey is the former Assistant to the U.S. President for Economic Policy and Director of the U.S. National Economic Council. He is currently a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Read More......

Sowell: A crossroads election

ONENEWSNOW.com, 11/1/2010 by Thomas Sowell - "Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don't mean as much this year-- not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come. ∴ Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important. ∴ For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined. Read more at One News Now... Read More......

Poll: More voters relate to Tea Party views over Obama's

RASMUSSEN REPORTS, 4/5/2010 - On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own. Read more at Rasmussen Reports... Read More......

Moody’s Says U.S. Debt Could Test Triple-A Rating

NEW YORK TIMES, 3/15/2010 by David Jolly and Catherine Rampell - The gold-plated credit rating of the United States — an article of faith across America and, indeed, around the world — may be at risk in coming years as the nation copes with its growing debts. ∴ That sobering assessment, issued Monday by Moody’s Investors Service, provided a reminder that even Aaa-rated United States Treasury bonds, supposedly the safest of safe investments, could be downgraded one day if Washington failed to manage the federal debt. Read more at NYT...

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Former GAO head calls for 'fiscal responsibility'

FOXNews, 1/25/2010 by David Walker - Will Obama Finally Do the Right Thing With Our Money? At last, President Obama is feeling pressure to demonstrate his concern for "fiscal responsibility" with actions rather than words.

David Walker is a former comptroller general of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—"the nation's top auditor," and author of Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility. Read More......

Calling on Congress to stop the debt tsunami

WASHINGTON POST, 12/18/2009 by David S. Broder (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - The 34 names are familiar to anyone who has followed economic policy in Washington for the past generation, one-third of them former chairmen or members of key committees of Congress, seven of them former directors of the White House Office of Management and Budget, two of them former comptroller generals of the United States, seven of them former directors of the Congressional Budget Office, and one of them -- Paul Volcker -- a former chairman of the Federal Reserve System and now an adviser to President Obama. ∴ Both political parties are well represented in their number. But they came together this week as signatories of a nonpartisan manifesto, essentially a stark warning to the president and Congress and a plea for action on behalf of the next generation. Read more at the Washington Post...

John recommends reading the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform warning. Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt Read More......

Economics No Match For Politics

FORBES.COM, 12/8/2009 by Richard A. Epstein - The real reason that unemployment lines won't shrink. [...] Exhibit A is Christina Romer's recent Wall Street Journal column, "Putting Americans Back to Work." Romer heads the president's Council of Economic Advisers. Her column rates as a bit of transparent propaganda that belongs in a fan magazine, not a serious newspaper. If she wrote it of her own volition, she should be fired for economic incompetence. If, as seems more likely, the White House wrote it for her, or told her just what to say, she should resign in protest.

[...] ...she blindly celebrates Obama's worst economic blunders as his greatest triumphs. The $787 billion stimulus package in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a bust. Its protectionist "Buy American" provisions remain a perpetual irritant to international trade. The warped Cash for Clunkers program created a short bubble via a massive public giveaway, while doing nothing to help the environment. Read more at Forbes... Read More......

China questions costs of U.S. healthcare reform

REUTERS, 11/16/2009 - Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions. Read more at Reuters... Read More......