More Madoff Madness

Government Protects the Greedy and Complicit, Screws the Innocent Investors

Government strikes again! People who personally invested with Bernie Madoff are eligible for SIPC (A form of government-sponsored investment insurance). Pensioners who merely invested in a pension fund or 401K that in turn invested with Madoff get nothing. Squat. Nada

This is bass-ackwards
People who knew him personally or invested directly should get nothing, because they had to be either stupid or greedy to look at the returns they were getting and not suspect something.

Pension fund and 401K managers should be prosecuted along with Bernie. This is their profession, and they didn't think something was fishy? Once again, they were either professionally incompetent or implicitly complicit.

Meanwhile, pensioners who depend on a monthly stipend and knew nothing of the Madoff scheme their funds invested in, are not eligible for this FDIC-like program for investments.

Finally, our stupid government, which shields people from investment fraud like this through the SIPC, insures a ponzi scheme.

You want these people running health care?

WSJ

NBC NY – Madoff

SIPC

CSM

USA Today

VP Biden Speaks on Health Care. Corrections to Follow

G8 Addresses Global Warming & Other Fairy Tales

International Organizations = Global Incompetence

L'AQUILA, Italy (AP) - President Barack Obama and other leaders at the Group of Eight summit have struck a new agreement on fighting global warming.

Consider the ridiculousness of this statement by our president:

“We have agreed for the first time that average global temperatures must rise by no more than 2C."

This is folly. Why not demand the wind stop blowing? It spreads air pollution around and messes up women's hair-dos. Why don't they just have Obama rebuke the global atmosphere? "Peace, be still!" No, wait. That was Jesus calming the seas...

Santa Claus and Witches are Next
The gathering also targeted tax criminals such as Santa Claus, who undercuts local businesses and pays no political contributions or taxes. He's also an environmental offender, spewing reindeer flatulence, which the G8 recently declared a greenhouse gas. The bearded offender is known as Pere Noel in France, Cinter Klaas in Holland, Der Weinachtsmann in Germany and El Navideno on the Iberian Peninsula.

The G8 midgets also agreed to scour European forests for the big bad wolf and and the witch who menaced Hansel und Gretel. The latter should be easy since she is rumored to live in a gingerbread house and has developed a taste for oven-roasted children.

Last year we discovered that Bush was Batman, but so far, the secret is still safe that Barack Obama is Robin Hood.



AP - G8 Follies

Times Online - Climate Fantasies

Chicago Ray

Junk Statistics

Here's a great example of junk statistics. Define the criteria to favor your point of view, then merely conduct the poll and prove yourself right:

Costa Rica is world's greenest, happiest country

Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country in the world, according to a new list that ranks nations by combining measures of their ecological footprint with the happiness of their citizens.

The HPI measures how much of the Earth's resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result.

NEF says the HPI is a much better way of looking the success of countries than through standard measures of economic growth. The HPI shows, for example, that fast-growing economies such as the US, China and India were all greener and happier 20 years ago than they are today.

Oh yes, those Indians and Chinese were so much happier mired in grinding, starving poverty. Ever notice how those who rhapsodize about the beauty and dignity of poverty do so from the cushy confines of a luxurious first-world country? When's the last time you heard a poor woman schlepping water two miles uphill extolling the virtues of green starvation?

This is pure twaddle. Statistics show a positive correlation between a country's prosperity and the state of its environment. There is no documented correlation between being green and being happy.

World's happiest and greenest country? Reminds me of the late night commercial hawking some washed-up singer's records by screaming "he's sold more records than Elvis and The Beatles combined!" To which the wag replies, "Yeah, because Elvis and The Beatles never combined to make a record."

Guardian

None Dare Call It Fascism

Wal-Mart, the company the left loves to hate, has crawled in bed with Obama

Recent press reports, including a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal, have the news that Wal-Mart has signed a letter to President Obama endorsing the idea of an “employer mandate” – a requirement that employers offer health insurance to their employees.

Why would Wal-Mart – the nation’s largest employer – endorse such an idea?

Simple: It would cripple many of their competitors. (Source: Heritage Foundation)

Back in the 80's and early 90's Wal-Mart and Microsoft prided themselves on staying far away from politics: No lobbyists and no political contributions. They dedicated themselves to selling stuff and making software. A mere ten years later, each company had a legion of lobbyists permanently stationed in the nation's capital and they were busily shoveling political contributions into the hog trough trying to stave off deleterious government regulation while encouraging rules that would benefit them.

Business-state entanglements are much more dangerous (and expensive) than any imagined church-state partnership
When the state starts picking winners and losers, all businesses must swing some of their resources away from productive work and dedicate them to paying obeisance (and money) to Washington.

Big Government and Big Business: A Torrid Love Affair
And this is where government gives advantage to the big guys. Jonah Goldberg explains is best in Chapter 8 of his excellent book, Liberal Fascism. It is cheaper for a big corporation to comply with the millions of pages of government regulation than it is for a mom and pop operation. Big corporations love big government: They use it's regulatory schemes to snuff the competition and to erase the scary, unpredictable vagaries of of the "free" market. In return, they do the bidding of DC while keeping the political machine well-oiled.

Destroying Capitalism to Save It
Corporatism didn't start with Obama. It started with Woodrow Wilson, continued through FDR's administration and ebbed during the Reagan years. President George W. Bush taught us how to save capitalism by destroying it, showering Wall Street banksters with trillions from the treasury. Next, in a fit of collective madness, we elected a man who had never run anything larger than a shake-down operation, and who had never thought about anything larger than his own young life.

We've hit the inflection point
Now we have the once proud Wal-Mart urging Uncle Sam to require all businesses to provide employee health care. Why? Because a nanny-state swaddled in government mandates is safer and more predictable than anything-goes free-market. Most importantly, once we hit the inflection point where the critical mass tips towards state-sponsored corporatism, even giants like Wal-Mart must bend to the state's will or risk going out of business.

Heritage-Walmart
Wiki - Liberal Fascism

Yes, you may kiss my hand!
Obama greeted by junior partner in Russia. Big Daddy Vlad was rumored to be out hunting bear in nothing but his skivvies.