Buy My Booklet - Iran Continues Ramping Up!

I hope you will buy my booklet and read it and if you like it send to those on your own e mail list. I invite your comments (brokerberko@yahoo.com).

My computer guru, Paul LaFlamme, has arranged for my booklet to be available in book form in several weeks. It is currently available in PDF format (see below.)

Testimonials:

Dick, I read your book this weekend.  I hardly know where to start.  You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed.  It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms.  I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.

  

I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..

You did a great job.  I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.

Mike

You wrote a great book.  The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief.  Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

"

Dick,

I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words.  Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…

Regards,

Larry"

"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born"

By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert

I wrote this booklet because I believe a strong country must rest on a solid family unit.Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."

I  hope this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.

Please Buy My Booklet - Half The Proceeds Go To "The Wounded Warrior Project!"

You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or even print out if you want. 

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Apparently, Sam Nunn is working through the back door with Senate friends to find a method for avoiding the over the fiscal cliff  we are now pursuing.  Nunn's  thinking follows  the path I discussed i a recent memo.  Stay tuned.

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According to The WSJ this is Obama?  (See 1 below.)
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Hanson on the neurotic Middle East.  (See 2 below.)
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Buyer's remorse.(See 3 below.)
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Sowell on capital gains tax.  (See 4 below.)
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Four More Years! (See 5 below.)
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World fiscal crisis to remain for decade according to IMF Chief Economist. (See 6 below.)
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Iran presses forward and the window keeps narrowing. Very important informed read!. (See 7 below.)
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If you want more of something fund it.  Stossel on funding dependency! (See 8 below.)
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Dick
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Wall Street Journal Sizes Up Obama  By Alan Caruba:  A "deadly" article regarding Obama, at the Wall Street Journal, which today is the most widely circulated newspaper in America. "I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he's led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House. In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? "Dreams of My Father" was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The "Audacity of Hope" followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a "communist with a small 'c'" was the real author. His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley's formidable political machine at his disposal. He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before? He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed "cool" in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance. And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984's Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat. The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary. Now, 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters. Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to "wish away" some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain. The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign "world tour" were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions. Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party's hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues. Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an "obstreperous" Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against "jumping to conclusions" about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted "Allahu Akbar." The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber "an isolated extremist" only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot. He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America. He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame. The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth. Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual's life. When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden. We laugh at the ventriloquist's dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States. We the people are coming! Only 86% will send this on. Should be a 100%. What will you do?

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The Neurotic Middle East By Victor Davis Hanson      Let us confess it: Many of the things that are bothersome in the world today originate in the Middle East. Billions of air passengers each year take off their belts and shoes at the airport, not because of fears of terrorism from the slums of Johannesburg or because the grandsons of displaced East Prussians are blowing up Polish diplomats. We put up with such burdens because a Saudi multimillionaire, Osama bin Laden, and his unhinged band of Arab religious extremists began ramming airliners into buildings and murdering thousands.

The Olympics have become an armed camp, not because the Cold War Soviets once stormed Montreal or the Chinese have threatened Australia, but largely because Palestinian terrorists butchered Israelis in Munich 40 years ago and established the precedent that international arenas were ideal occasions for political mass murder. There is no corn or wheat cartel. There are no cell-phone monopolies. Coal prices are not controlled by global price-fixers. Yet OPEC adjusts the supply of oil in the Middle East to ensure high prices, mostly for the benefit of Gulf sheikhdoms and assorted other authoritarian governments.

Catholics don’t assassinate movie directors or artists who treat Jesus Christ with contempt. Jewish mobs will not murder cartoonists should they ridicule the Torah. Buddhists are not calling for global blasphemy laws. But radical Muslims, mostly in the Middle East, have warned the world that Islam alone is not to be caricatured — or else. Right-wing fascists and red Communists have not done as much damage to the First Amendment as have the threats from the Arab Street. The world obsesses over Israel and the Palestinians because of the neurotic Middle East. The issue is not really the principle of a divided capital — or Nicosia would be daily news. Nor is the concern over refugees per se, since well over 500,000 Jews were religiously cleansed from the major Arab capitals following the 1948 and 1967 wars. No one cares where they went or how they have fared in the decades since. Is the global worry really over occupied territories? Hardly. Lately it seems that every desolate island between China and Japan is equally contested. Are there special envoys to the Falklands, and do the islanders receive international aid? Will there be a U.N. session devoted to the Kuril Islands? Does Gdansk/Danzig merit summits? We are told ad nauseam that the Arab minority in Israel suffers — would that the ignored Coptic minority in Egypt had similar protections and freedoms.

The oil-rich Middle East is just different from other regions. We don’t expect another Cal Tech to sprout in Cairo in the way it might in either Bombay or Beijing. Nor do we assume that a cure for prostate cancer could ever emerge from Tripoli as it might from Tel Aviv. The world will not be flooded by Syrian-made low-cost, durable products that make our lives better — comparable to what comes from South Korea. There will be not a Saudi or Algerian version of a Kia. High-speed machine lathes will not be exported from Pakistan as they are from Germany. I doubt that engineers in Afghanistan or Yemen will replace our iPads. The Middle East’s efforts in the production of biofuels will not rival Brazil’s. Libya will not send archaeologists to the American Southwest to help investigate Native American sites.

In other words, in politically incorrect terms, the world tacitly gives exemptions to the Middle East — and expects very little in return. It assumes that the rules that apply elsewhere of civility, tolerance, and nonviolence are inoperative there — and perhaps have reason to so be. Money is made in the Middle East either by pumping out oil that others have found and developed or, less frequently these days, by catering for tourists who wish to see the remains of what others built centuries earlier. Few foreigners decide to spend a relaxing week in Egypt, or to sunbathe on the beaches of Gaza, or to enjoy the wine and cheese of Libya, or to snorkel in the waters off Syria, or to study engineering in Algiers. How many tourists choose to mountaineer in  Afghanistan or visit Persepolis or unwind in Pakistan? The world also assumes a sort of Middle Eastern parasitism: Daily its millions use mobile phones, take antibiotics, hit the Internet, fire RPGs, and play video games, and yet they not only do not create these products that they rely upon, but largely have antipathy for those who do.

Asymmetry is, of course, assumed. One expects to be detained for having a Bible in one’s baggage at Riyadh, whereas a Koran in a tote bag is of no importance at the Toronto airport. The Egyptian immigrant in San Francisco, or the Pakistani who moves to London, expects to be allowed to demonstrate against the freewheeling protocols of his hosts, while a Westerner protesting against life under sharia in the streets of Karachi or Gaza would earn a death sentence. What is nauseating about this is not the hypocrisy per se, but the Middle Eastern insistence that there is no such hypocrisy. We expect the immigrant from Egypt to deface public posters and call it freedom of expression; we expect Mr. Morsi, who enjoyed American freedom while he studied for his Ph.D. and then taught for three years in California, to deny it to others and trash his former host. So how do we make sense out of this abject nonsense? Superficially, it occurs because the world is cowardly, and we accept that terrorism is far more likely to emanate from the Middle East than elsewhere. Principles or tastes do not explain why movies mock Christ and not Mohammed. Fear does, and all sorts of empty pontifications must dress up the necessary compensatory selectivity.

Self-interest explains a lot too. It is not just that nearly half the world’s oil comes from the Middle East. The money paid for it means enormous opportunity for recycling profits. An American university that would oust a student for uncivil speech at home has no problem with rampant anti-Semitism and religious intolerance in its Middle Eastern affiliate — as long as the students pony up $60,000 in annual petrodollar-fed tuition and expenses.

The present low-down age counts as well. The West is not as it was right after World War II, when it was not shy about defending its values and believed that the future of democracy and free markets it offered would mean liberty and security for hundreds of millions. Today, utopian pacifism, multiculturalism, and moral relativism arise out of self-doubt and fears of decline — at precisely the time when radical Islam is more confident than ever before that its own less liberal future is assured. The paradox is not just that the well-off in London, Paris, and Washington are diffident, while the impoverished in Cairo and Tehran are fanatic, but that there comes also a certain sick awe in the self-loathing West for those who can at least be zealous in their self-righteousness, however repellent in the abstract that may be. One could see all this in Piers Morgan’s CNN interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The more the latter spouted his anti-Semitic and anti-Western hatred and homophobia, the more the liberal former seemed mesmerized by such surety — in a way he most surely is not by Sarah Palin’s mild conservatism.

Finally, what accounts for Middle Eastern neuroticism? A sense of collective inferiority, a feeling that life is pretty miserable, when it need not be — and that the causes are foreign rather than homegrown. Exasperated Arab secular intellectuals sometimes confess that tribalism in place of meritocracy, statism in place of free markets, authoritarianism in place of consensuality, religious fundamentalism in place of tolerance, censorship in place of transparency, and gender apartheid in place of sexual equality combine in the Middle East to ensure poverty and violence.

The latest round of radical Islam arose — in the manner of Nazism in the 1930s, Communism in the 1940s, and Baathism and pan-Arabism in the 1960s — not to address the self-inflicted causes of such failure, but to indict others: Jews, Western democracies and Western capitalists, non-Arabs and heretics, and, above all, powerful Americans. The whines and lamentations gain credence when the Arab Street watches NBC and CNN, when the engineering student attends an American social-science class, when Hollywood endlessly shows the world the evil CIA agent behind the latest Middle Eastern scandal or the white male CEO whose company’s pollution causes cancer. Western self-loathing is offered as proof of Western culpability. Radical Islam then steps in, assuring the Middle Eastern Street that an absence of piety explains why a once-great civilization now bows to decadent Western infidels: The more a believer memorizes the Koran, supposedly the less power the Westerner has over him, and thus the less the beloved iPhone he uses each day can corrupt him.

What can be done? A psychiatrist treating a delusional neurotic attempts to bring him slowly back to reality. In the case of the Middle East, that would mean in the long term defending vigorously the values of free speech, tolerance, and constitutional government — and not giving exemptions on the basis of fear or multicultural relativism. More practically, the U.S. must develop fully all its energy supplies — coal, nuclear, natural gas, oil, and alternative fuels — to reduce the strategic importance of the Middle East in U.S foreign policy. At some point we must be honest: The American self-righteous green zealot who opposes almost all production of new finds of natural gas is not just the fanatical bookend of the Middle Eastern Islamist, but also the means by which the latter gains money and clout.

In the short term, reciprocity would be wise. If violence should continue against American personnel and facilities, we can gradually trim foreign aid, advise Americans not to visit Egypt or Libya, put holds on visas for students from Middle Eastern countries that do not protect Americans or that contribute to terrorism, recall our ambassadors and expel theirs. Reopening our embassy in Damascus and dubbing Bashar Assad a “reformer” did not improve relations with Syria or temper Syrian extremism. A reduced security profile in Libya did not create good will for our ambassador. Two billion dollars in aid to Egypt did not win hearts and minds. The Palestinians are not fond of us, despite millions of dollars in annual aid.Having Mr. Morsi on the USC campus did not bank good will for the future, any more than, long ago, Sayyid Qutb’s subsidized travel throughout America earned us a soft spot in the heart of the Muslim Brotherhood. I don’t see how welcoming in Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy and giving her airtime on CNN and MSNBC has enriched the United States by providing us a keener understanding of Egypt — not when she uses spray paint to deface public posters that she personally finds objectionable.To sum up, the West should just say, “No.” —

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3)RJC Releases New TV Ad: "Renie"

  

Washington, D.C. (October 3, 2012) -- The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) has released the next in its series of television ads in targeted swing states. In the new ad, Renie Tell, a life-long Democrat from New York, relates her personal story of Obama buyer's remorse.

Renie supported Barack Obama in 2008, but won't vote for him this year. She says, "I guess I fell for 'Hope and Change' ... the 'hope' is gone and the 'change' didn't happen, and I think what changed has changed for the worse." On jobs, the economy, and Israel Renie says, "We can do better than Barack Obama."

The ad will run on broadcast and cable television in Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Click here or on the graphic below to watch Renie tell her story.

   

   

See "Michael," the first television ad in the series here. For more personal stories, visit http://mybuyersremorse.com.

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Capital Gains Taxes

Thomas Sowell

Oct 03, 2012

One of the many false talking points of the Obama administration is that a rich man like Warren Buffett should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. But anyone whose earnings come from capital gains usually pays a lower tax rate.

How are capital gains different from ordinary income?

Ordinary income is usually guaranteed. If you work a certain amount of time, you are legally entitled to the pay that you were offered when you took the job. Capital gains involve risk. They are not guaranteed. You can invest your money and lose it all. Moreover, the year when you receive capital gains may not be the same as the years when they were earned.

Suppose I spend ten years writing a book, making not one cent from it in all that time. Then, in the tenth year, when the book is finished, I may sell it to a publisher who pays me $100,000 in advance royalties.

Am I the same as someone who has a salary of $100,000 that year?

Or am I earning $10,000 a year for ten years' work?

It so happens that the government will tax me the same as someone who earns $100,000 that year, because my decade of work on the book cannot be documented. But the point here is that it is really a capital gain, and it illustrates the difference between a capital gain and ordinary income.

Then there is the risk factor. There is no guarantee to me that a publisher will actually accept the book that I have worked on for ten years -- and there is no guarantee to the publisher that the public will buy enough copies of the book to repay whatever I might be paid when the contract is signed.

Even the $10,000 a year -- which is less than anyone can earn on an entry level job -- is not guaranteed. If my years of work produced an unpublished manuscript, I would not even have been among the first thousand writers who met this fate.

Very similar principles apply to businesses. We pay attention to businesses after they have succeeded. But most new businesses do not succeed. Even those businesses that eventually turn out to be enormously successful may go through years of losing money before they have their first year of earning a profit.

Amazon.com spent years losing money before turning a profit for the first time in 2001. McDonald's teetered on the edge of bankruptcy more than once in its early years. Desperate expedients were resorted to by the people who ran McDonald's, in order to just keep their noses above the water, while hoping for better days.

At one time, you could have bought half interest in McDonald's for $25,000 -- and there were no takers. Anyone who would have risked $25,000 at that time would be a billionaire today. But there was no guarantee at the time that they wouldn't be just throwing 25 grand down a rat hole.

Where a capital gain can be documented -- when a builder spends ten years creating a housing development, for example -- then whatever that builder earns in the tenth year is a capital gain, not ordinary income. There is no guarantee in advance that the builder will ever recover his expenses, much less make a profit.

There are whole industries where no one can expect to make a profit the first year -- publishing a newspaper for example. Virtually every major American airline has lost money in some years, and some of the biggest and most famous airlines have ended up going bankrupt.

If a country wants investors to invest, it cannot tax their resulting capital gains the same as the incomes of people whose incomes were guaranteed in advance when they took the job.

It is not just a question of "fairness" to investors. Ultimately, it is investors who guarantee other people's incomes in a market economy, even though the investors' own incomes are by no means guaranteed.

Reducing investors' incentives to take risks is reducing the jobs their investments are likely to create.

Business income is different from employees' income in another way. The profit that a business makes is first taxed as profit and the remainder is then taxed again as the incomes of people who receive dividends.

The biggest losers from politicians who jack up tax rates are likely to be people who are looking for jobs that will not be there, because investments will not be there to create the jobs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Four More Years? Of This?
By Warren Beatty

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/four_more_years_of_this.html#ixzz28Fm1cClO

President Barack Hussein "kill list" Obama says that he needs four more years to fix the economy.  Never mind that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a "less than spectacular" rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012.  Or that George Walker Bush's deficit-to-GDP ratio was 2.7 percent, while Obama's deficit-to-GDP ratio is 8.9 percent (Reagan's, by the way, was 4.2 percent).  Or that today's economy is far worse than it was in 2008.  You remember, the one Obama claimed that his policies would correct.  So, considering today's economy, despite what Obama (claims he) was not told, and after three and a half years of his economic policies, can any one of you 

Democrats/liberals/progressives (yes, that's intended to be a pejorative term) suggest why the next four years would be any different?

Regarding food stamps, there are today a record number of U.S. citizens receiving food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP).  As this chart shows, the increase in food stamps predates Obama, but he perfected the increase.  Under the eight years of Bush, spending grew from $19 billion to $39 billion.  That's bad enough.  But in only four years under Obama, the spending has grown to $85 billion, more than double Bush's highest year.  In fact, Obama has spent more ($290 billion) in four years than Bush spent ($237 billion) in eight.

All the food stamp spending is going on while the deficit and national debt continue to rise.  The national debt stood at $10.626 trillion when Bush left office.  That is bad enough.  It was $15.566 trillion in May 2012, and is now over $16 trillion.  Bush added $4 trillion (according to Obama) to the national debt in eight years.  Obama has added more than that in less than four years, with no end in sight.

This chart illustrates how the debt has grown since FY2002.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said, "Under President Obama's stewardship, the national debt has grown by more than $4 billion per day, $170 million per hour, $2.8 million per minute and more than $47,000 per second."  The article citing Brady also said that the debt is "... more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the US."  And let me remind you that in 2008, while campaigning for president, Obama said that Bush's adding to the debt was "was 'unpatriotic' and also 'irresponsible' to saddle future generations with such a large national debt."

Let me also remind you that in 2009, Obama said that he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his four-year term as president.  He actually said that.  That's one promise he won't even come close to keeping.  Let's see -- we are soon to be in FY2013, and the deficit still has not been cut, much less in half.  Running all those pesky deficits must be Bush's fault; none of Obama's economic policies could have had anything to do with them.  But how can we know?  The Senate, led by Harry Reid (D-NV), has not passed a budget in over three years, despite a budget requirement law that the Senate passed.

Regarding the "unofficial" recession we are currently experiencing, this graph (ratio of employment to population) and its interpretation pretty well say it all. 

Also, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts another recession (like we already left one) if "Taxmageddon," an almost $500-billion tax increase due on January 1, 2013, becomes reality.  Yet Obama refuses to do anything.

J.D. Foster, of the Heritage Foundation, says:

What makes this [coming] recession different, and predictable, is that the disruptive force is Washington policies and, even more, Washington behaviors - policies and behaviors for which the nation can thank the Congress and especially President Obama.  The policy is Taxmageddon.  The behavior is intentional, insistent inaction.  The consequence is recession. The response should and will be outrage.

Foster says that a recession is coming, and he lays it at the feet of Obama and Congress since they refuse to act.

Meanwhile, orders for durable goods -- those goods expected to last for at least three years -- dropped by 13.2 percent in August.  This is an indication that Foster is correct, that the U.S. economy is indeed headed for another recession.

Regarding jobs, the MSM (bless their in-the-tank hearts) announced that some jobs were "found" and that Obama is now, according to the Labor Department, a net jobs creator.  The Labor Department reports that rather than a loss of 261,000 jobs, a gain of 125,000 jobs has occurred.  But there is this little fly in the ointment: CNN, hardly a conservative bastion, reported a loss of 500,000 jobs.  This is a tough one.  I guess it all comes down to whom you believe.  The Labor Department, a part of the Obama administration, is still 375,000 jobs short of what CNN says.

Regarding The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), better known as ObamaCare, to quote John Hayward in a Human Events article, "[t]he greatest legislative disaster of the new millennium, ObamaCare, just keeps getting worse."  When campaigning in 2008, Obama promised a drop in family health insurance premiums of $2,500 annually.  But what has actually happened is that the premium amount has risen by $3,000 since Obama took office.  Further, premium amounts have risen more rapidly during the Obama administration than they did during the last four years of the Bush administration.  I guess we just did not, or could not, read the bill, as Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested, to find out what was in it.  But higher health premiums must be all right since Pelosi is very proud of this legislation.

Regarding the Obamaphone, this Obama supporter kinda makes you proud, doesn't she?   Has she ever considered who pays for her Obamaphone?  There is no free lunch.  Or that perhaps her economic situation is a result of her life choices?  Or that there are some of us who choose not to support her chosen lifestyle, yet we are forced (through tax policies) to do so?

Now that the precedent has been set with the Obamaphone, where will it end?  What's next?  Obamaflat screenTVandsatellitedish?  The Obamadishwaher?  And let's not forget this winner about Obamamoney.  This one kinda makes you proud as well.

Has anyone seen how much we taxpayers are spending on the first family?  Comparing us with what the British spend on the royal family, the Brits are pikers.  The British spent "only" $57.8 million last year on their royal family.  Guess what U.S. taxpayers spent last year on the First Family: $1.4 billion -- yes, that's billion with a "B."  That amount included housing, entertaining, flying, and staffing for President Obama and his family.  In his book Presidential Perks Gone Royal, Robert Keith Gray wrote that "... Obama isn't the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office.  But the amount of money spent on the first family has risen tremendously under the Obama administration[.]"  And Obama continues with his antics despite increasing the deficit.  I guess you can say that Obama is doing his part to drive up deficits.

Speaking of royal, Gray says, "The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election."  So, let's see how Obama is funding projects in one particular state -- Ohio (where Republican John Kasich is governor -- that fact must really stick in Obama's craw).  Did you know that Obama gave the first federal grant for creating 15 manufacturing centers nationwide to Ohio?  Or that "[w]hen the Obama administration awarded tax credits to promote clean energy," Ohio companies got almost four times the $125 million that is the average of other swing states?  Or that Ohio received "$400 million to resume passenger train service between Cincinnati, Cleveland and other cities, a service that had ended four decades earlier"?  Or that when Congress refused to fund his $1-billion "manufacturing innovation institutes" scheme, Obama went ahead anyway and funded a pilot program?  Guess where the $30-million pilot institute was located.  You guessed it: Youngstown, Ohio.  Or that Miceli Dairy Products in Cleveland, OH received a $5.49-million loan just after the Small Business Administration raised its loanlimit from $2.5 million to $5.5 million?  Coincidence?

All that money for Ohio is great, but buying votes with taxpayer money is another matter.

In the non-economic department, let's not forget what has recently happened in Egypt and Libya.  Obama and his administration (particularly the State Department headed by Hillary Clinton) blamed the attacks on a movie (that very few have seen, especially in the Middle East) that unflatteringly portrays Islam's Prophet Mohammed.  If true, then why did the State Department removewhat was a "no credible information" memorandum from its website? 

We now have an attack on sovereign American territory during Obama's watch.  But he will somehow blame Bush for the attack.  I thought that everything Bush did made the Muslim world hate us and that Obama was going to make the Muslim world love us.  If so, why all the violent protests despite the United States government's repudiation of the video?

In the "uh-oh" department, we have Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) saying, "People kept calling for the truth and, in the end, the administration realized that what they had tried to put together -- blaming it on this movie and having it as a spontaneous act rather as being a terrorist act -- wasn't going to sell because it obviously wasn't true."  And Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)'s websitehas this statement (emphasis mine):

U.S. Senators John McCain (R-Arizona), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) sent a letter to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice seeking clarification on her statements that the September 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya was the result of a 'spontaneous reaction.'  The evidence clearly shows the attack that resulted in the death of four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens was planned and coordinated.  In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, you made several troubling statements that are inconsistent with the facts and require explanation.

Are the "wheels coming off" Obama's security failure and attempted cover-up?  White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Republicans were trying to politicize the issue.  The Obama administration knew within 24 hours that the attacks were not spontaneous, were planned.  Yet on September 14, fully 72 hours after the attacks, Carney said, "Let's be clear: these protests were in reaction to a video that had spread to the region."  About the Benghazi consulate attack, Carney said, "We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack."

Those of you Democrats/liberals/progressives (we know that you're are out there) who will offer sources saying that Bush was complicit in 9/11 will cite "crackpot truther" and speculation sources, but no one will offer any sources from the Bush administration.  But we have, from no less than Leon Panetta, Department of Defense head (and Obama administration member), testimony that terrorists planned the consulate attack.  Panetta said, "As we determined the details of what took place there and how that attack took place, it became clear that there were terrorists who planned that attack."

Democrats/liberals/progressives will say that Obama had nothing to do with security.  That may be true, but Obama cannot, no matter how he tries, duck responsibility for this one.  One of the first things we are taught in the military is that a commander can delegate authority, but he cannot delegate responsibility.

One of the principles that caused the 13 colonies to revolt against Great Britain was "taxation without representation."  Today, with about 47 percent of the U.S. population paying no income tax, the revolt over "representation without taxation" is gaining momentum in the form of the Tea Party.  You Democrats/liberals/progressives are free to support the "takers" (those who don't pay income tax, who seek Obamamoney and seek Obamaphones).  No one, least of all the Tea Party, will stop you.  We will see just how many of you will step up, will fill the gap with your own money once the government can no longer borrow money.  I'll wager that very few will, that there will be a wringing of hands (for all the good that will do), and that there will be a cry to raise taxes to take care of Obama supporters.  Well, here's your chance.  The U.S. is broke and deeply in debt.  That is a fact.  There's nothing and no one stopping you from providing goods and/or services with your own money.

The only question I have is: "Who will pay for all of this?"  Forcing "the rich" to participate by taxing them more will not provide more than a temporary solution.  Confiscating will not balance the budget.  And, if confiscation were done, do you really think "the rich" would keep working, would generate revenue to be confiscated in the next year?

Further, if every penny were confiscated from "the rich," those making $200,000 or more each year, just how long do you think the federal government could have run in 2009?  Two hundred and fifty-three days!  What about the next year?  What about state and local governments?  How could "the rich" pay state or local taxes if the federal government confiscated all their money?

And while we're at it, let's specifically define "fair share."  People making over $200,000 in 2008 constituted 3 percent of income-earners but paid 52 percent of income tax.  People making over $1,000,000 in 2008 constituted 0.2 percent of income-earners but paid 24 percent of income tax.  Fair?  Has much changed today?  Not really.  Mitt Romney, according to a Mother Jones video, said (emphasis mine):

... there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.  That that's an entitlement.  And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what....

Our message of low taxes doesn't connect ... so my job is not to worry about those people.  I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Romney is, of course, correct.  Democrats/liberals/progressives and the MSM tried to make something of his remark, but it was difficult to do when Romney had been truthful.  And I couldn't help but notice that no Democrats/liberals/progressives stepped up to convince the 47 percent Romney was speaking of to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives."  Or did the MSM report that, and I missed it?

I know this will be a challenge for most of you Democrats/liberals/progressives, but try to read the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.  You remember, the document that Obama is trying to ignore, or to pick what he favors.  The preamble specifically refers to:

• establish Justice - not one word about what Democrats/liberals/progressives refer to as "economic justice."  The phrase means "equal justice for all, the Right for every resident of the United States to be protected as to life, liberty, and property and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law."  So the phrase "establish Justice" refers to courts of law.  There is nothing stopping any of you Democrats/liberals/progressives from providing economic justice.
• insure domestic Tranquility -- the Founders were referring to a "general peaceable set of conditions of life in this country."
• provide for the common defence -- "the government will ensure protection to the states and territories and to all citizens/residents thereof in the event of conflict with any foreign nation."
• promote the general Welfare -- not a word in there about "provide," but also not a word about stopping those who want to provide what Democrats/liberals/progressives consider welfare.  "Welfare" refers to "health, happiness, prosperity or well-being."
• secure the Blessings of Liberty -- the U.S. Constitution safeguards the liberty of American citizens as well as the "liberty to do what one desires, without any fear or prejudice."

There is not one word in the U.S. Constitution preventing anyone from providing welfare or ensuring economic justice so long as "domestic tranquility" is not disturbed, as long as any unlawful act is not committed.  So Democrats/liberals/progressives have to say that the U.S. Constitution is a "living document" to be interpreted -- a document that says whatever they deem it to say, rather than an immutable set of principles that our Forefathers meant it to be.  Have any of you Democrats/liberals/progressives ever read the Federalist Papers?

So Obama wants four more years to further ruin the U.S. economy and to further lie to us.  Plus he wants four more years to perfect cronyism and to subsidize "green energy."

That's just my opinion.  But my opinion is shaped by sourced facts, unlike most Democrat/liberal/progressives, who offer knee-jerk (another pejorative term), unsourced opinions.  So, all you Democrat/liberal/progressives, offer, if you can, sources to show me the error of my ways.

Dr. Beatty earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University.  He was a (very conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in using statistics to assist/support decision-making.  He has been a consultant to many small businesses and is now retired.  Dr. Beatty is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6)IMF Chief Economist: Global Crisis Will Last a Decade

The world economy will take at least 10 years to emerge from the financial crisis that began in 2008, International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Blanchard told Hungarian website Portfolio.hu, in an interview conducted on September 18 that Germany would have to accept higher inflation and a real strengthening of its purchasing power as part of the solution to Europe's problems.

But even though the focus was on Europe's troubles now, he said, the United States also had a fiscal problem which it had to resolve.

"It's not yet a lost decade... But it will surely take at least a decade from the beginning of the crisis for the world economy to get back to decent shape," Blanchard said.

"Japan is facing a very difficult fiscal adjustment too, one which will take decades to solve. China has probably taken care of its asset boom but has slower growth than before, but we do not forecast any really hard landing," he added.

Blanchard said that adjustment in the euro zone required a decrease in prices in the bloc's indebted southern half and a rise in core countries.

For the European Central Bank to maintain 2 percent inflation for the bloc as a whole, core states would have to have higher inflation than 2 percent — something strongly resisted in Germany, where 1920s hyperinflation still haunts the popular debate on interest rates.

"A somewhat higher inflation rate in Germany should simply be seen as a necessary and desirable, relative price adjustment," Blanchard said. "Given overall demand conditions and the ECB's strong mandate to ensure price stability, this is not the beginning of hyperinflation," he said.

On the debt crisis, Blanchard said that debt reductions were unavoidable but it should be done without stifling growth, walking on a "narrow middle path."

"If you do it too slow, the market thinks you're not serious, if you do it too fast, you kill the economy. For each country you have to find the right path of consolidation," he said.

He said inflation-targeting had serious limitations and using just the main policy rate was not enough.

"You can have an economy in which inflation is stable and low, but behind the scenes the composition of the output is wrong, and the financial system accumulates risks."

"The way to think about monetary policy in the future is that the central bank has in effect two sets of tools," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7)

Iranian source: Nuclear program hiring non-stop, ramping up enrichment

...the third stage of enrichment — from 20% to 90%, or weapon-grade — “requires even fewer centrifuges, 500 units, and can be easily hidden in a small underground unit, not much bigger than 1,000 square meters, that is almost impossible to detect from a satellite and can be easily hidden anywhere in Iran." Iranian source: Nuclear program hiring ‘non-stop,’ ramping up enrichment ‘The knowledge is there but getting the right parts has been difficult at times,’ says secretive contact By Sabina Amidi Iran is recruiting staff relentlessly to work on its nuclear program, is making steady progress in its uranium enrichment, and has constructed several facilities for nuclear testing outside Tehran whose precise location is known only to high-ranking officials, according to an Iranian source who said he was hired recently as a researcher at one of Iran’s nuclear facilities. In a telephone interview with this reporter, who has made several reporting trips to Iran in recent years, the source — who spoke on condition of anonymity — said it had been “very hectic” of late at the facility where he is employed. “More and more young graduates and people are brought in every day,” he said. “We have been working non-stop.” The information provided by the source could not be independently verified. The contact would not specify where he is employed. The Iranian researcher said he was speaking because he wanted the outside world to know that, despite attacks on Iran’s top scientists and other pressures aimed at halting the nuclear program, “we are not afraid and we have continued to progress.” Without detailing the quantities involved, the source said that Iran had already enriched uranium to 30 percent, and “by next year, we hope to reach up to 50 or even 60 percent. The experience and knowledge is there, but getting the right parts at times has been difficult.” He said some equipment being received was “not reliable and sometimes defective.” An Iranian member of parliament spoke earlier this summer about a need for 50-60% enriched uranium, ostensibly for nuclear propulsion for ships. Iran has received assistance for its nuclear program from various countries, including Russia, Pakistan and North Korea, Western diplomats say. Some centrifuges and centrifuge components were obtained in the 1990s from a procurement network run by the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and some subsequent Iranian centrifuge design has reportedly been based on the Pakistani designs. The Iranian researcher’s comments came soon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted in TV interviews that Iran’s nuclear drive had to be halted “at the enrichment stage.” In a speech to the UN last Thursday, Netanyahu said Iran was “well into the second stage” — of “medium enrichment” of uranium for a bomb. “By next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.” The researcher said “many of our laboratories and testing facilities” have been constructed underground, and spoke of “other non-official test facilities outside of Tehran.” Only high-ranking officials had information on these, he said. Professor Uzi Even, one of the founders of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona, told The Times of Israel a month ago that he believes the regime in Iran has already covertly created the 20-25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary to conduct a successful underground test. In response to the Iranian contact’s comments, Even elaborated on Iran’s progress. He said there was “no reason or need for Iran to enrich uranium” unless it was aiming to build a nuclear arsenal,” and then described how Iran has gone about doing so. Even said the “amount of material flow required for the first enrichment stage — to 3% from natural abundance of 0.7% — is highest, and thus requires many thousands of centrifuges.” This had been going on at Iran’s Natanz facility for five years. The second stage of enrichment — to 20% — “requires a much smaller effort,” he said, involving 2,000 centrifuges — a fifth of the centrifuges used in stage one. This has been carried out at Iran’s Fordo underground plant, near Qom, for the past two years, Even said, stressing that he was basing himself solely on publicly available information and had no access to classified material. Finally, the third stage of enrichment — from 20% to 90%, or weapon-grade — “requires even fewer centrifuges, 500 units, and can be easily hidden in a small underground unit, not much bigger than 1,000 square meters, that is almost impossible to detect from a satellite and can be easily hidden anywhere in Iran.” “At this concentration,” Even went on, “turning the gaseous compound used in enrichment into a solid core required for weapon is tricky, because it can become ‘critical’ and cause a radiation accident.” He stressed that such an accident would not be akin to a bomb exploding, but would “release enough radiation to kill the people handling the device.” There have been various reports of mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear facilities in recent years, including one at the uranium enrichment facility at Isfahan last November. The IAEA has also repeatedly sought access to the Parchin facility, where it suspects Iran has carried out tests relating to its nuclear program and has then sought to cover up evidence of such testing. Even estimated that the Iranians have already accumulated enough weapons-grade fissile material to try to design a nuclear warhead. “They could test it underground tomorrow,” he said, “but it is still several years before such a design could be made to fit the missiles they have. For two or three years,” he concluded, “Iran cannot be considered a nuclear threat to anyone.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8)We Fund Dependency By John Stossel "There are no jobs!" That is what people told me outside a government "jobs center" in New York City. To check this out, I sent four researchers around the area. They quickly found 40 job openings. Twenty-four were entry-level positions. One restaurant owner told me he would hire 12 people if workers would just apply. It made me wonder what my government does in buildings called "job centers." So I asked a college intern, Zoelle Mallenbaum, to find out. Here's what she found: "First I went to the Manhattan Jobs Center and asked, "Can I get help finding a job?" They told me they don't do that. 'We sign people up for food stamps.' I tried another jobs center. They told me to enroll for unemployment benefits." So the "jobs" centers help people get handouts. Neither center suggested people try the 40 job openings in the neighborhood. My intern persisted: "I explained that I didn't want handouts; I wanted a job. I was told to go to 'WorkForce1,' a New York City program. At WorkForce1, the receptionist told me that she couldn't help me since I didn't have a college degree. She directed me to another center in Harlem. In Harlem, I was told that before I could get help, I had to come back for an 8:30 a.m. 'training session.'" Our government helps you apply for handouts immediately, but forces you through a maze if you want to work. "WorkForce1's website says to arrive 30 minutes early, so I did," Zoelle said. "A security guard told me the building was closed. At 9:15, Workforce1 directed 30 of us into a room where we were told that WorkForce1 directs candidates to jobs and provides a resource room with 'free' phone, fax and job listings and helps people apply for unemployment insurance and disability handouts. This seemed like the only part of the presentation when people took notes. "One lady told me that she comes to WorkForce1 because it helps her collect unemployment. One asked another, 'What do you want to do?' The second laughed, 'I want to collect!' One told me, 'I've been coming here 17 months; this place is a waste of time.' "Finally, I met with an 'adviser.' She told me I lacked experience. I know this. I asked for any job she thought I was qualified for, and she scheduled an interview at Pret, a food chain that trains employees. At Pret, I learned that my 'interview' was just a weekly open house, publicized on the company's website. Anyone could walk in and apply. Workforce1 offered no advantage. Despite my 'scheduled interview,' I waited 90 minutes before meeting a manager. He told me that WorkForce1 had 'wasted my time, as they always do.' He said, 'They never call, never ask questions.' He prefers to hire people who seek out jobs on their own, like those who see Pret ads on Craigslist.'" My intern learned a lot from this experience. Here are her conclusions: —It's easier to get welfare than to work. —The government would rather sign me up for welfare than help me find work. —America has taxpayer-funded bureaucracies that encourage people to be dependent. They incentivize people to take "free stuff," not to take initiative. —It was easier to find job openings on my own. The private market for jobs works better than government "job centers." Yet now New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to expand Workforce1, claiming that it helps people "find real opportunities." I bet he never sends people in to find out whether they really do. Once politicians figured out that welfare creates dependency and hurts poor people, they (logically) assumed that employment services and job training would help. Job trainingdoes help — when employers do it. But government does everything badly. GeorgiaWork$, a state program in that state, provided such poor training that only 14 percent of trainees were hired. The Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) operated more like a commercial for government handouts. It launched door-to-door food stamp recruiting campaigns, and gave people free rides to welfare offices. America now has 47 federal jobs programs. They fail. Yet politicians want more. They always want more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------