Archive for October, 2011

The Fed fails to grasp that an interest rate is a price, the price of time. Attempting to manipulate that price is as destructive as any other government price control.

by Ron Paul, (R-TX)

To know what is wrong with the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the nature of money. Money is like any other good in our economy that emerges from the market to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. Its particular usefulness is that it helps facilitate indirect exchange, making it easier for us to buy and sell goods because there is a common way of measuring their value. Money is not a government phenomenon, and it need not and should not be managed by government. When central banks like the Fed manage money they are engaging in price fixing, which leads not to prosperity but to disaster.

The Federal Reserve has caused every single boom and bust that has occurred in this country since the bank’s creation in 1913. It pumps new money into the financial system to lower interest rates and spur the economy. Adding new money increases the supply of money, making the price of money over time—the interest rate—lower than the market would make it. These lower interest rates affect the allocation of resources, causing capital to be malinvested throughout the economy. So certain projects and ventures that appear profitable when funded at artificially low interest rates are not in fact the best use of those resources.

Read more from the Wall Street Journal

How long has it been now?

(November 5, 2009)

Is justice delayed, justice denied?

Join fellow Republicans as we join forces to take back the Presidency of our great nation and to elect another Republican to the U.S. Senate.

Confirmed guests include former Governor Tommy Thompson and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch.
Vicki McKenna will be the emcee for the evening.

Other Invited Guests
Mark Neumann, Candidate for U.S. Senate (confirmed)
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen
Wisconsin State Representatives and State Senators
Please bring a toy for “Toys for Tots”

WHEN: Friday, October 21, 2011 from 6:00 PM to 9:00PM
WHERE: Italian Community Center
631 E. Chicago Av.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
View Map

Coordinator: Rose Ann Dieck - 414-421-9337

Includes Sit down dinner - Cash bar

Registration Options
$40.00 - Single
$45.00 - Single at the door
$62.50 - Single w/picture
$80.00 - Couple
$90.00 - Couple at the door
$125.00 - Couple w/picture
$375.00 - Table of 10 (without photo
$1,000.00 - Table of 10 w/group picture

Reservations should be made by Tuesday, October 18th at this link to YourPatriot

Download a flyer for this event here

Reservations may also be mailed in to
RPMC, PO Box 14665, West Allis, WI 53214

Come and learn about the Republican Women of Greater Milwaukee (RWGM) Club.
Meet fun & like-minded women.
Learn more about the activities of Republican Women in Milwaukee County.
Bring a friend!
Door Prizes to win!

WHEN: Monday, November 7th, at 6:30 PM

WHERE: At the home of
State Representative Mark Honadel
1219 Manitoba Ave
South Milwaukee, WI

RSVP at rwgminfo@gmail.com
By Monday, October 31st, 2011

There is no cost and walk-ins are welcome!
Gluten-free pastries will be provided.

Download a flyer of this event

The idea that big banks damage the broader economy has considerable resonance on the intellectual right. Thomas Hoenig, the recently retired president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has been our clearest official voice on this topic. And Eugene Fama, father of the efficient markets view of finance, said on CNBC last year that having banks that are “too big to fail” is “perverting activities and incentives” in financial markets - giving big financial firms “a license to increase risk; where the taxpayers will bear the downside and firms will bear the upside.”

The mainstream political right, however, has been reluctant to take on the issue. This changed on Wednesday, with a very clear statement by Jon Huntsman in The Wall Street Journal on regulatory capture and its consequences. Before the 2008 financial crisis, he wrote, “the largest banks were pushing hard to take more risk at taxpayers’ expense.” And now, he added:

This message could work politically, for five reasons.

First, for anyone on the right of the political spectrum who thinks at all about the issues, this is a coherent and appealing position. Mr. Fama had it exactly right when he said, in the same interview that “too big to fail” “is not capitalism; capitalism says - you perform poorly, you fail.”

“Too big to fail” is not a market-based concept; it’s a government subsidy scheme - of the most inefficient and dangerous kind.

–SNIP– Second, serious senior figures within the Republican Party have long been pointing in this direction. In 2009, for example, former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady said, “First we should just come out and say it: the financial system that led us to the brink of disaster is broken.” And former Secretary of State George P. Shultz has emphasized that we should “make failure tolerable,” suggesting, for example, “an escalating schedule could be required of necessary capital ratios geared to size and matched with escalating limits on leverage.”

Republicans like to discuss who is and is not a true Republican. How can any true Republican condone the subsidies that underpin our biggest financial companies today?

Read more by Simon Johnson from the NY Times via Yahoo Finance

Sometimes it’s really hard to understand why certain events get heavy national press coverage while others which are arguably at least as significant and serious get little if any notice. This is one of them. Scott Walker, who solved a $3 billion projected deficit in Wisconsin, is a media and leftist (but I repeat myself) arch-villain because much of the balancing was done by adjusting public-sector employee contributions towards health and pension benefits to more closely but still more generously resemble what’s seen in the private sector, and by reducing public-sector employees’ ability to restore them to their formerly out-of-control levels through collective bargaining. Ditto for John Kasich in Ohio, where the projected deficit was $8 billion.

Meanwhile, the state of Illinois defers billions of dollars of payments to vendors by four or more months because, despite 67% and 46% increases in personal and business income taxes, respectively, it still doesn’t have the money to come even close to staying current. Yet virtually all we’ve seen from the national press on the problem is one Associated Press story conveniently filed on a Saturday.

Read more by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters

On October 9, an unbylined Associated Press story reported that Congressmen Darrell Issa “could send subpoenas to the Obama administration as soon as this week over weapons lost amid the Mexican drug war.” On Wednesday, October 12, Issa did just that.

Mike Vanderboegh’s Sipsey Street Irregulars blog has a succinct summary (HT Ed Driscoll) of the establishment press’s coverage of Issa’s actions since the subpoenas’ issuance:

As evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury of history, I present the undisputed fact that on the evening news shows of NBC, ABC and CBS this week not one — NOT ONE — mentioned the unprecedented subpoena by a Congressional committee of information regarding the entire top echelon of the Justice Department in the Gunwalker Scandal.

Had this scandal involved John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration, does anyone doubt that the story would have led the nightly half-hour “puppet theater”? Or, that it wouldn’t have been covered like a blanket by all news departments from the moment the blood of Brian Terry dried in the desert sands of Rio Rico?

Read more by Tom Blumer from Newsbusters

Honest and alert ELECTION WORKERS are a key to fair elections.
Can you serve as an election worker in 2012?

* Four elections in 2012, all on Tuesdays
* You work from 6:30 AM to 9:00 PM
* One-hour training class
* Your pay is close to minimum wage
* You have the satisfaction of a job well done!

To sign up as a Republican election worker in your community, contact your community contact person (a member of the Republican Party of Milwaukee County) listed below.

The Republican Party of Milwaukee County can nominate you to be a worker. (You must be a paid member of the Republican Party of Milwaukee County) for your name to be submitted to your city clerk. If you have questions about your membership call 414-7272-1220 and leave a message that you are interested in doing this very important job.

If you are not currently a member of the Republican Party of Milwaukee County you may sign up online at https://secure.yourpatriot.com/ou/rpmc/membersignup.aspx . Or, fill out this membership form which you may download and send in to the RPMC at Republican Party of Milwaukee County, P.O. Box 14665 West Allis, WI 53214. If you have any questions please call 414-727-1220, and leave a message and your call will be returned.

To sign up as a Democrat or Independent election worker in your community, contact your city clerk.

Contact Persons
Laurie Wolf 414-352-7499 Northshore (Shorewood, Fox Point, Bayside, Whitefish Bay, Brown Deer, Glendale, River Hills)
Becky Geary 414-479-0573 Wauwatosa
Tony Bellanti, Sr. 414-545-8968 West Allis/West Milwaukee
Carol Brunner 414-425-6231 Southwest Suburban (Franklin, Greendale, Greenfield, Hales Corners, Oak Creek)
Sam Hagedorn 414-303-5140 Milwaukee North (city of Milwaukee, north of I-94
Michael S. Murphy 414-364-8762 Milwaukee South (city of Milwaukee, south of I-94)

Please submit your name no later than November 1, 2011 for consideration for the next elections.

A PDF of this message is also at
http://milwaukee.wisgop.info/files/2011/10/fair-elections-are-a-vital-part-of-our-democracy.pdf

President Barack Obama stands accused by conservatives of waging class warfare, seeking to galvanize his base and lure middle-class voters by pitting the rich against everyone else.

But Obama’s reelection strategy is about more than the haves and have-nots. It appears he is seeking to stir up full-blown cultural warfare against a large and diverse segment of society known as Republicans.

Having failed to lower the unemployment rate to a politically tolerable level, Obama cannot run as most presidential candidates do — on the economy. So he and his advisers seem to have decided instead to mount a deeply polarizing campaign based on “values” — suggesting his vision for America is correct even if the economy is not right yet.

But in waging this battle, Obama is saying nasty and dangerous things. He is promoting his own principles — not just by touting their goodness, but by suggesting that Republicans hold to an offensive, even un-American, philosophy.

By painting his opposition as not just wrong but evil, Obama risks dividing the nation in a profound and unnecessary way.

Read more by Keith Koffler from Politico

I am a millionaire, but I never held a real job in my life.

I went to Harvard and Columbia.

I have one of the biggest private jets in the world take me wherever I want.

My wife wears $44,000 diamond bracelets.

I play golf every weekend at the most expensive resorts.

Goldman Sachs gives me millions of dollars.

When I retire, I’ll get paid hundreds of millions $ in speaking fees by big companies.

I’ll make millions more as a board member of the corporations you are protesting.

MY NAME IS BARACK OBAMA, AND I AM THE 1%.

From a comment on Business Insider

Sheriff Paul Babeu led a press conference with 9 other Arizona sheriffs today, to blast Attorney General Eric Holder and the Administration for the disastrous ‘Operation Fast and Furious’, calling it a a “betrayal of state law enforcement”.

Standing in front of a Phoenix memorial for fallen law enforcement officers, including Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry – murdered as a direct result of the operation – the sheriffs called for the president to launch an independent investigation and for Attorney General Eric Holder to step down or be fired. They are demanding that Holder reveal the truth behind the scandal, and believe that those responsible should be criminally accountable for allowing 2,000 guns to be purchased on U.S. Soil and turned over to the Mexican drug cartels.

Read more by John Hill at Stand With Arizona

It’s a national disgrace that the Senate has not produced a budget, as of October 16th, 2011, in 900 days. Senate Democrats, during this time of national crisis, failed even to present a budget plan — in open defiance of the law and the public they serve. Senate Majority Leader Reid said it would be “foolish” to have a budget. The reason for this evasion is clear: Democrat leaders in Washington think it is politically foolish to commit publicly to the kind of tax increases and health-care rationing that would be required to sustain their vision of ever-expanding federal government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW0NNXc67SU

America is greatly in need of strong, competent leadership.

Our nation’s total debt is now larger than our entire economy. Unemployment is painfully high and growth is painfully slow. Since taking office, the president has accelerated Washington’s reckless spending spree, has added trillions of dollars to the debt, and has refused to present a credible plan to put Washington’s fiscal house in order.

Meanwhile, Congress is divided. Republicans control the House, Democrats the Senate. As required by law, House Republicans presented a budget in committee, brought it to the floor, and passed it earlier this spring. It was an honest, detailed, concrete plan to put our budget on the path to balance and our economy on the path to prosperity. But Senate Democrats, during this time of national crisis, failed even to present a budget plan — in open defiance of the law and the public they serve. Senate Majority Leader Reid said it would be “foolish” to have a budget. The reason for this evasion is clear: Democrat leaders in Washington think it is politically foolish to commit publicly to the kind of tax increases and health-care rationing that would be required to sustain their vision of ever-expanding federal government.

Read more by Jeff Sessions & Paul Ryan at National Review

By State Sen. Frank Lassee

Two families that I represent have moved out of their homes because of the headaches, dizziness, mental fog, ear aches, agitation and lack of sleep that occurred when Industrial Wind Turbines (IWT) were built near their home last October. How would you feel if you couldn’t live in your home because of these symptoms? How would you feel paying two mortgages?

These people aren’t the only families that have moved because of health reasons. A family in Fond du Lac County abandoned their $300,000 remodeled farm house because their 16 year old daughter had intestinal lesions, and was hospitalized for it. The good news is it cleared up when they moved away. This family also reported their lamas stopped conceiving after the IWTs were built.

These new towers are nearly 500 ft. tall, nearly twice as tall as the State Capitol building. IWTs create vibrations and noise. There are studies coming from other countries that have had IWTs longer, suggesting some people have very real health problems.

If you want to know what it’s like to live near an IWT, watch a couple of minutes of this You Tube video taken near the Horicon Marsh. It’s one thing to talk about the problems; it is another to actually experience them – even via video. Because we aren’t building them in cities, more people from urban areas are content to have them in other people’s backyards.

The first thing you will notice on the video is the noise. They make a lot of it. One man compared it to the sound of a jet plane with a whirl to it. I was told by someone who lives near them that they have fans in them that they can hear when the wind is not blowing and all is quiet.

There is a place for wind energy; it shouldn’t be too close to a person’s home. That’s why I introduced the “Health Study for Wind Turbines” bill earlier this week. It creates a moratorium on future wind turbines until we study these health effects further. It requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to work with the Department of Health Services to make setback requirements that are appropriate in light of the possible health problems.

We need to learn more about the health impacts of IWTs on people and animals. We need to find out what is “too close” and what distance is acceptable. Right now, we don’t know.

In this country of ours, we should not be locating 50 stories industrial wind towers near people’s homes and farms until we know what can happen. It isn’t fair to the people who have lived for years in their homes. Our citizens should be protected. People should be secure and safe in their own homes.

Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker and Noise, Byron Wisconsin

. . . the term “capitolism” might best describe our current economic system!

From a comment on Free Republic