Archive for the ‘Welfare State’ Category
Wednesday, July 24th, 2013
Smart denizens of California must be eying Detroit’s bankruptcy warily. After all, 60 years ago Detroit was the wealthiest city in America. And California seems hellbent on following Detroit’s Blue State path to bankruptcy sooner rather than later…
Problem: California public employees union members getting outrageous retirement benefits on the taxpayer’s dime. Solution: Hide their pension figures from the public.
From Dwight comes this gem of a news story:
Bruce Malkenhorst took home more than $911,000 a year as city manager of the tiny city of Vernon. His reign ended shortly
before he was convicted of misappropriating public funds, and he walked away with an annual pension that eventually topped $500,000,
the largest in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
But CalPERS last year decided to cut his pension to $115,000, concluding he’d derived some of his hefty salary improperly.
So now the 78-year-old Malkenhorst is suing Vernon to make up the difference.
And if you’re interested in California corruption, you should be following Dwight’s regular updates on Vernon and Bell.
Resignation Media, another California company, is moving to Austin. (Hat tip: Urban Grounds. )
Meanwhile, California e-discovery firm Daegis Inc. is also moving its headquarters to Texas.
Navarre Corporation relocates from Minnesota to Texas.
Houston edges out New York City as the nation’s largest goods exporter.
More on Dwight Howard and others fleeing California’s income tax burden.
Detroit won’t be the last city to declare bankruptcy.
California Latino supermarket chain Mi Pueblo declares bankruptcy. The article says that creditor Wells Fargo wanted to “change the terms” of loans, but something doesn’t add up. Turns out that profits dived when Mi Pueblo was forced to fire illegal aliens after an audit, and that put their profitability under the level dictated by the terms of the loan.
Parallels between Detroit and San Bernardino.
Tags:bankruptcy, California, fraud, San Bernardino, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Economics, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, July 22nd, 2013
It’s shaping up to be another busy week, so here’s a quick update on the European Debt Crisis front:
EU Debt burden hits an all-time high.
Greece shuts down its bloated, money losing ERT public television/radio network. “Problems with Greek democracy are not the reason that ERT was shut down. ERT was an extravagant public company. Many, though not all, employees were hired under suspicious conditions, due to favoritism and nepotism, and receiveddisproportionately large wages (8000 Euros per month through the financial crisis and 13000 Euros per month before).”
Taki (who is Greek) offers some pungent assessments of his home country’s continual crisis.
In Europe, the law is seen is “an obstacle rather than a foundation.”
Spain steals from tomorrow’s retirees to pay for today’s retirees.
Portugal refrains from blowing up for a little while longer.
Germany’s finance minister tours his vassal state.
Don’t expect the EuroZone to explode before German elections on September 22. Plus calls for an “EMU Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
First review of UK’s relationship with EU comes to the conclusion that everything is just hunky dory.
Tags:Budget, Economics, Euro, Germany, Greece, PIIGS, Portugal, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Economics, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Friday, July 19th, 2013
Detroit went bankrupt. One stranger was acquitted for shooting another stranger. Which do you think the media spent more time covering?
“Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.”
The IRS scandal now leads to the chief counsel, one of only two Obama appointees at the agency.
“The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
The Wall Street Journal makes the case for dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece.
Republican Insiders are very, very upset that Jim DeMint is exposing them for the RINOs they are.
My precious snowflake is extremely gifted. He’s also 29 and unemployed because so many jobs are unworthy of his Promethean talents. Matt Walsh: SMACKDOWN.
“The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
Charles Barkley on the Zimmerman trial: “Just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.”
A few facts about Marissa Alexander that may not be apparent from a two panel picture comparison with George Zimmerman.
“Reason for termination: Disabled veteran.”
“Negative perceptions of young black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes.”
Near empty New York hospital losing $3 million a week. Naturally, unions are demanding it stay open. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Charles Murray on American exceptionalism.
Marco Rubio was riding high. Then he became a shill for amnesty, and now his life is all sad trombones. I haven’t seen a serious national political aspirant fall so far since Gary Hart went boating.
Today’s serial Democratic Party groper who felt-up at least six women and who the state party forced their members to cover up for comes to you from California.
Tags:Blue State, California, Detroit, Gary Hart, George Zimmerman Trial, Heritage Foundation, IRS, Jim DeMint, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, vets, Welfare State
Posted in Military, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, July 11th, 2013
The hot days of summer are here. Texas is now into its usual 100° summer days. However, if it’s any consolation, Death Valley hit a record 129° in June.
Texas’ business climate is a lot like our summers: hot, hot, hot! California’s business climate is a lot like Death Valley: Still and oppressive.
On to the Texas vs. California roundup:
Unemployment claims are up in California.
You know all that talk of California having a small budget surplus? That doesn’t count the $10.3 billion California owes the federal government for unemployment compensation, an amount that is not expected to be paid off until 2020.
Between 2007/8 and 2013/14, “the officially reported unfunded pension liability for state workers through the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) grew from $31.7 billion to $57.2 billion, an 80.1% increase.”
He, remember that short-lived BART strike? How horribly were the employees “underpaid?” “BART employees — including management and nonunion workers — earn an average of about $83,000 annually in gross pay, contribute nothing toward their retirement and $92 monthly to health insurance. Their pay and total compensation are both the highest in the Bay Area among transit agencies.”
BART’s highest paid employee in 2012? Someone who earned $333,000 and never worked a day that year.
California’s coming health insurance death spiral.
California writer explains why he and his family relocated to Texas.
Did taxes help Dwight Howard decide to leave the Los Angeles Lakers for the Houston Rockets?
Rick Perry retiring means the Texas is losing on of its greatest pitchmen to the business community.
California, bluest of blue states, forcibly sterilized female prisoners. Well, liberal’s love of eugenics goes back at least as far as Margaret Sanger…
Tags:California, eugeneics, Margaret Sanger, ObamaCare, Texas, unemployment, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, ObamaCare, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 10th, 2013
The ongoing European Debt Crisis hasn’t ended, it’s merely undergoing a summer hiatus while the various bankers and Eurocrats involved in the shell game take their customary 8 week vacations. As such, expect a new round of crisis headlines to come rolling in during the fall.
Remember: The purpose of the shell game is to let insiders unload their bad debts onto taxpayers. (Look how it was done in Ireland for pointers.) The shell game will continue as long as the insiders can get away with buying off restive electorates with an unsustainable cradle-to-grave welfare state.
Europe’s present is our future.
Once again, Greece is being given money to pretend to reform. Look for more fake austerity, and another bailout in six months.
“Greece will never repay the money it’s been lent to ‘save’ it. The current debate over whether Greece has done enough by way of reform, tax hikes and spending cuts to have earned the next tranche of bailout funds is largely beside the point. If Greece is cut loose, or walks away, its euro-zone creditors will lose their money. The Greeks and the Germans are surely both aware of this. They’re also aware that Greece’s external debt position is far worse than when the bailouts began—when its debt stood at a mere 129% of GDP—and that any talk of debt sustainability in Greece has become a joke.” It’s now at 157% of GDP.
Predictably, Greek unions respond to more fake austerity and staff cuts by extending strikes.
Europeans realize that their governments are corrupt. Those who think they’re not corrupt? “In Spain that number is just 8 percent. In Italy, it’s 13 percent. And Greeks and Portuguese have the least trust in the world regarding their governments’ efforts: Just 1 percent of respondents say their government is making strides against corruption.”
And just how corrupt is Greece? “Politicians and journalists are viewed as on the take by most Greeks with 50 percent also saying they’ve had to bribe public officials to get services.”
Eurozone unemployment hits all time highs.
The EU is preparing a banking union bill. No word on whether it will require depositors to take haircuts like those in Cyprus in the event of a bank failure.
And speaking of bank failures, there are rumblings that Slovenia will require a bailout.
Portugal is still trudging through their own bank bailout…
…despite which they may still need another bailout.
Italy could be forced to beg for a bailout in six months.
UK actually proposes to roll back some 35 EU laws. This may be the first sign that Cameron’s wet Tories have actually noticed how effectively Nigel Farge’s UKIP is eating into their base…
UKIP itself says it’s a threat to the entire political class Well, let’s hope so…
Latvia is now set to join the Euro on January 1, 2014.
Tags:Budget, Euro, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Greece, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, July 8th, 2013
Funny how three day weekends where you have to work Friday always leave you with more stuff you need to do rather than less. So here’s the Friday LinkSwarm on Monday.
“Barack Hussein Obama: You Killed the Arab Spring.” And other anti-Obama signs from Egyptian protesters.
Why is Obama more concerned with Morsi being deposed than he ever was with Mori’s totalitarian destruction of Egypt’s democratic institutions?
Ted Cruz says that Obama is making the same mistake in Egypt he made in Iran.
“In government, Morsi and his allies had an impossible task: to make Egypt work. Now they have an easier one: watch it fail.”
Speaking of which, at least 50 people were killed in clashes between Egypt’s military and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Islamic terror group Boko Haram burns 30 people alive, most children in an attack on a boarding school in Nigeria.
Turkey imprisons more journalists than any other country.
Germany’s finance minister: “We should not accept Turkey as a full member … Turkey is not part of Europe.”
Thomas Sowell: “The political left’s welfare state makes poverty more comfortable, while penalizing attempts to rise out of poverty. Unless we believe that some people are predestined to be poor, the left’s agenda is a disservice to them, as well as to society.”
“All the net growth in employment among the working-age (ages 16–65) over the last decade went to immigrants (legal and illegal). Since 2000 the total number of immigrants employed is up by 5.3 million, while native-born employment is down 1.3 million.”
“Modern liberalism, among other things, is a psychological state, in which very-well-off Americans find ways through their income and privilege to be exempt from the ramifications of their own ideologies, while adopting causes and pets that exempt them from guilt over their own status and limitless opportunities. Judging by their concrete actions, they are indifferent to the poor whom they romanticize at a safe distance.”
Conservatives take aim at Lamar Alexander.
The bill Wendy Davis killed would have required abortion clinics to meet the same safety standards as clinics that perform LASIK.
Disgraced former NY governor to run for New York City comptroller…against his former madam. Gee, the Eliot Spitzers and Anthony Weiners of the world must really miss all the fawning and graft.
UT ranks 26th on the list of top 100 universities in the world. Don’t know how accurate that ranking is, but it must rankle Yalies to rank a mere 10th…and behind Harvard!
How does a Western cost $250 million to make, even after Johnny Depp has taken a pay cut? Unless half the budget went to cocaine?
What’s the difference between MSNBC and paint drying? A: Some people watch paint dry.
Tags:abortion, Boko Haram, Democrats, Egypt, Elections, Jihad, Media Watch, Mohammed Morsi, MSNBC, Muslim Brotherhood, New York City, Nigeria, Obama, Ted Cruz, terrorism, Texas, Thomas Sowell, Turkey, Victor Davis Hanson, Welfare State
Posted in Economics, Jihad, Media Watch, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, June 27th, 2013
Time for another update of just how hard Texas is kicking California’s ass:
Chuck DeVore has the skinny on California’s recent “growth:”
The BEA revised California’s real GDP growth downward from 2009 to 2011 in each of three years by a cumulative 2.6 percent, the third-largest negative revision in the nation.
In other words, California’s economy shrank an additional 2.6 percent before it grew 3.5 percent.
So, in the past five years California’s real GDP contracted 0.3 percent, one of ten states where economic activity was less in 2012 than it was in 2008.
By contrast, the BEA revised Texas’ growth upward by 0.5 percent from 2009 to 2011.
Texas’ newly revised real GDP growth from 2009 to 2012 was 13 percent.
From 2009 to 2012, California’s share of the U.S. economy shrank from 13.1 percent to 12.9 percent while Texas’ portion of the American economy increased from 8.2 percent to 9 percent.
Walter Russell Mead joins in:
What should be the Federer vs. Nadal of state-level competition has become a lopsided trouncing: Texas has humiliated its opponent in straight sets. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with its state-by-state economic growth numbers for 2012, and Texas is dancing the two-step all over California’s “recovery.”
“Texas and California provide real-world results from the so-called laboratory of democracy — the states. The results aren’t even close. Texas wins and has been winning for years. California, champion of the big government blue state model, is in a death spiral. Texas, champion of the small government red state model, continues to grow and lead the way.”
California Democrats lose their supermajority, so they have to get one last “screw you” tax hike in.
California’s legislature has the highest salary in the country. (By contrast, Texas legislators make $600 per month, plus a per diem that’s currently $139 for every day the Legislature is in session.)
The Nanny State wants to regulate nannies. “Yo dawg, I heard you liked nanny states, so I put the nanny state in charge of your nannies so the nanny state nannies can nanny nannies.”
Billionaire Texas Democrat seeks to reform California pensions. Might want to pop some popcorn for this one. (Arnold does indeed give primarily to Democrats, but recently he’s also made contributions to Ted Cruz ($2400 in 2011), Tom Coburn and the RNC, plus a relatively paltry $200 donation to John McCain in 2010.)
Remember: If you’re going to kill somebody, it’s far better to do it in California than Texas. “At the pace the state has executed inmates over the last 35 years – roughly one execution every three years – it would take the state about 2,000 years to clear its backlog.” Why is why rail-traveling serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz was executed after 7 years in a Texas prison, but “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez spent 23 years living at the expense of California taxpayers before dying of natural causes.
California city of Atwater avoids bankruptcy by the skin of its teeth. Naturally, public employee unions are saying that now is the time to get raises…
Speaking of unions, even they are having problems with ObamaCare.
United Farm Workers picket United Farm Workers. No, that’s not a typo.
Tags:Atwater, California, Chuck DeVore, Crime, death penalty, ObamaCare, Texas, unions, Walter Russell Mead, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, ObamaCare, Texas, unions, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, June 17th, 2013
Time for another Texas vs. California roundup!
California’s mullet budget: conservative in the front, but with a long greasy, tangled mane of liberal spending and debt in the back.
“Public pension costs are increasing simply because liabilities are growing faster than assets….To meet the rate at which pension liabilities were growing in 1999, Calpers needed the Dow to reach 30,000 by now.”
“California still has a mammoth long-term pension gap. If it used the same pension accounting standards as private companies must, its total debts would be a terrifying $1 trillion.”
What does the future look like in California? Well, take a look at Detroit, another one-party liberal Democrat fiefdom, where decades of chronic overspending and mismanagement are leading to a bankruptcy filing which will screw bond-holders and pensioners alike.
Speaking of bankrupt cities that can’t pay their bills, Stockton is paying out $5.1 million in settlements for retirees who are losing their health benefits due to the bankruptcy.
Some inside baseball news on maneuverings in the Stockton and San Bernardino bankruptcies.
Due the huge looming deficits, California’s public employee unions have had to accept wage cuts. Ha, just kidding! They’re getting raises.
California’s highest court rules that privacy rights don’t apply to you if public employee unions want your money.
Despite high electric rates, California is shuttering one of its nuclear power plants.
Thanks to California’s implementation of ObamaCare, Aetna is exiting the individual insurance market there.
Rick Perry travels to Connecticut to woo gun manufacturers to relocate to Texas.
Why NBA All-Star Dwight Howard might join the Houston Rockets: Texas’ lack of a state income tax.
Tags:Budget, California, Democrats, Detroit, nuclear power, San Bernardino, Stockton, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, May 27th, 2013
Forbes makes the same point that I have made repeatedly: Austerity has not been tried and failed in Europe, it has been found difficult and left untried.
The official figures show that PIIGS governments embarked on massive spending sprees between 2000 and 2008. During this period, their combined general government expenditures rose from 775 billion Euros to 1.3 trillion – a 75 percent increase. Ireland had the largest percentage increase (130 percent), and Italy the smallest (40 percent). These spending binges gave public sector workers generous salaries and benefits, paid for bridges to nowhere, and financed a gold-plated transfer state. What the state gave has proven hard to take away as the riots in Southern Europe show.
Then in 2008, the financial crisis hit. No one wanted to lend to the insolvent PIIGS, and, according to the Keynesian narrative, the PIIGS were forced into extreme austerity by their miserly neighbors to the north. Instead of the stimulus they desperately needed, the PIIGS economies were wrecked by austerity.
Not so according to the official European statistics. Between the onset of the crisis in 2008 and 2011, PIIGS government spending increased by six percent from an already high plateau. Eurostat’s projections (which make the unlikely assumption that the PIIGS will honor the fiscal discipline promised their creditors) still show the PIIGS spending more in 2014 than at the end of their spending binge in 2008.
Remember: Real austerity is cutting budgets until receipts match outlays. In Europe this hasn’t been tried outside the Baltic states. Meanwhile, Japan has been trying Keynesian stimulus for two decades and has nothing to show for it but a mountain of debt.
Or take this abstract (I’m still working through the actual paper) from German Institute for Economic Research economist Georg Erber: “The core thesis of the paper is that taking a close look at the actual statistics available from Eurostat on the PIIGS-countries plus Cyprus, one finds little empirical evidence that the governments there have de facto reduced their total public expenditures.”
Keynesian pump-priming hasn’t worked in Europe. Could real austerity (i.e., cutting budgets until they’re balanced) work to restore growth in Europe (and here)?
Why not actually try it and see?
Tags:Budget, Economics, European Debt Crisis, PIIGS, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, May 6th, 2013
Time for another LinkSwarm!
Silly Joanne Chesimard. If she had just served her time, she’d have tenure by now.
Europe is “bleeding out”. Youth unemployment? “59.1% of those under 25 are unemployed in Greece, 55.9% in Spain, 38.4% in Italy, 38.3% in Portugal, 26.5% in France.” More: “Hope and Change economies are crony capitalist systems which pick winners and losers. They maintain the status quo at all costs — and reward those who have captured government over those who innovate.”
So which is funnier, violence against women, or intimidating crime witnesses? Mountain Dew puts both in the same ad! Hilarity ensues! (Oh, and some people think it’s racist. It is, but not any more than a random gangsta rap video.)
People don’t like being bossed around by the political class. But that’s the Democratic Party’s entire model!
Will the welfare state dstroy democracy?
Did the Boston Bombers kill illegal alien amnesty?
“We found 15 Trial Court cases, and 12 Appellate Court cases, where Shariah was found to be applicable in these particular cases. The facts are the facts: some judges are making decisions deferring to Shariah law even when those decisions conflict with Constitutional protections.”
Another day, another green car bankruptcy filing.
According to the IRS, the sins of the mothers are, in fact, the sins of the sons.
War on terror? What war on terror?
Israel hits Syrian weapons bound for Hezbollah. World yawns.
And just in case it wasn’t clear before, Syria’s army sucks at fighting Israel. Though they seem quote adequate for killing their own people…
Gun businesses continue to leave Colorado.
Former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson says that Ted Cruz isn’t allowed to be a Hispanic because he opposes illegal alien amnesty. Maybe they should just declare that you can’t be Hispanic unless you’re a Democrat and be done with it.
Speaking of Cruz, here’s a piece in The New Republic that, when stripped of standard TNR talking points, boils down to “Yes, Ted Cruz could be elected President.”
Another day, another another 20 dead in an Islamist attack on a Christian church.
Obama vows to stick hands into the open flame even longer this time.
Three year old black girl is the NRA’s youngest lifetime member.
China’s new Communist Party headquarters looks like a wang.
There are some Williamson County elections coming up May 11. None I’m voting in, but lots of city and ISD elections.
Nothing says “confidence” quite like insulting the genitalia of a stranger’s 11-year old child on the Internet.
Tags:Bill Richardson, Border Controls, China, Colorado, Communism, Europe, gun control, Guns, Israel, Jihad, Joanne Chesimard, Media Watch, NRA, Syria, Ted Cruz, Williamson County
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Democrats, Guns, Welfare State | 3 Comments »