The Lamentations of Lowry - Chapter 9: Avoiding Depression

Not the emotional kind. Take a prozac for that. I’m talking about the economic kind.

Above all I am an economic conservative. As such I fear the havoc Obama could inflict as Chief Executive. As we confront the current economic difficulties, the unusually named Amity Shlaes offers advice on how to avoid a repeat of the malaise of the 1930’s. A roundup of the 5 bad moves that can make downturns worse:

1. Giving in to protectionism
2. Blaming the messenger
3. Increasing taxes in a downturn
4. Assuming bigger government will bring back growth
5. Ignoring the cost of inconsistency

Barack Obama has a perfect record on these matters, and it could be a perfect disaster for the country. I would love for an Obama supporter to explain that away or attempt to justify it. If you can’t defend him on these points than what reason could there possibly be to vote for the man? The economy is the engine that moves the country along. Every other issue will be impacted by our economic strength or lack thereof.

Shlaes closes with the following:

The proximate danger today is a repeat of the 1970s, not the 1930s. But if lawmakers don’t remember the old missteps, they might find that their new recovery legislation imperils our recovery.

That is probably correct, but we should demand better.

Return of the Mitt

Our man Mitt is getting some attention and it’s coming from the Obama campaign (emphasis mine):

Mitt Romney’s chances of becoming John McCain’s vice presidential running mate are strong enough that the Democratic National Committee launched a full-scale attack on him Thursday.It introduced a Web site section to knock him and sponsored a nationwide conference call for reporters to listen as Romney was verbally flogged by politicians from Massachusetts and Michigan — two of the three states that Romney has called home. The other state, of course, is Utah, but no politicians from it joined the attack initially but did later in the day.

“He is the most intellectually inconsistent politician in the history of politics,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said of former Massachusetts Gov. Romney. “I have never seen anyone so completely without any commitment to any particular principle and so willing to say whatever he thinks will help him win the next election.”

Whaaa..? Barney Frank is a moron. Whatevah.

As a fan of the Mittster this article was welcome news. Mitt has done a great job of remaining relatively low key over the last several months. Let the Obama spend the money and time getting his name out there. There is more fun in that article to be had if you care to read the rest.

Olympic Fever

So, IRF has been on a little posting sabbatical as we have all been mesmerized by the Olympic Games (I can’t imagine what kind of effect the games are having on SportsAttitude).

I wanted to share some of my thoughts, and please add your own in the comments section.

1) Are we sure Mary Carillo has two x-chromosomes?  Here is a conversation a friend and I had:

F:  Mary Carillo admitted to taking testosterone for years.

LM:  That would explain the pantsuits.

F:  And the attraction to Billie Jean King.

.

2) The magical swimsuits that are helping everyone beat world records…  The doctor friend had the quote of the day on this one:  “Did you hear that they take up to 30 minutes to put on?  Apparently they come off easily, though, because as soon as Michael Phelps is out of the pool, he’s got it down so low, I could check for hernias.”

3) Beach Volleyball.  HOW DID THE BIGGEST T&A SPORT OF THE OLYMPICS TAKE THE PRIME TIME SLOT?  The schedulers at NBC ought to be shot (and in China, they probably WOULD be).  Why do I have to wait until 11pm to watch gymnastics?  That’s what all the kids want to see, and yet, it is on well past ALL of our bedtimes…  so the Children of America are forced to think that olympic games are about flat-chested women playing volleyball in bikinis.  And hugging between every point.  And the BELGIANS.  They should have selected a tasteful tank and boyshort.  If Olympians can have belly-rolls, is there hope for the rest of us?

4) Chinese gymnasts.  I REALIZE that gymnastics stunts your maturation process.  Once upon a time, I was among the stunted.  However, despite my lack of puberty, I did still manage to lose my BABY TEETH!  Here is a 16 year old before puberty sets in:

LeMare - 1995

Here is a “16 year old” Chinese gymnast.

Anyone who has shopped in Hong Kong has appreciated the Chinese ability to make a good fake, but COME ON.  Their BIRTH CERTIFICATES?

Oh, and by the way, am I the only one who finds Bob Costas to be tiresome?

Anyhow, God Bless America.  I can’t wait for your analysis!

It’s not their %!*#*)$ money!!!!

I get pretty ticked off when I hear about schemes like Barack Obama’s “emergency” economic plan:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”
Details are in this six-page policy paper. The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall.
“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt.

Working families? I work, but somehow don’t think I will be included in that group. This is the worst kind of pandering, and it is being financed in classic liberal fashion using faulty economic assumptions. This quote will demonstrate what I mean:

Friday’s proposal says Obama “is proposing to offset the cost of his emergency energy rebates over the next five years by enacting a windfall profits tax on big oil companies.”
“Obama simply asks that big oil companies contribute a reasonable share of the windfall profits they receive from high oil prices over the next five years to pay for emergency assistance for families right now,” the campaign says.

“Over the next five years” assumes a great deal. It fails to take into account the impact that this very tax will have on profits. It assumes continued strength in the oil sector that is far from guaranteed. It targets a specific industry due to some kind of dubious moral judgement as to what kind of profits are reasonable.

This is a VIOLATION of sound economic principles, and if I may be so bold, it is a violation of the property rights of shareholders of oil companies. Oil companies pay their taxes and then beyond that the money pertains to them and their shareholders. How much profit is reasonable?

ALL OF IT!

Obama Travelrama

Does it give him credibility? See how I feel at SPOTD.

Odd Bedfellows

Total Gym Direct is endorsed by an interesting trio of celebrities. You have Chuck Norris, a guy who has become a huge conservative, followed by Christie Brinkley, a woman in a nasty public divorce. Then to top it off, you have Wesley Snipes, a tax denier with a pending prison sentence.

Now in their defense, Mario Lopez was already taken, but c’mon marketing geniuses.

Guest Post: The Wheels that Keep Our Country Turning

My office carpet produces an insane amount of static electricity. I failed Physical Science. Twice. So that may not be exactly what is happening. I remember a rod being rubbed against a rabbit fur? I guess in this example I’m the rod. But I’d rather be draped in rabbit fur. That’s beside the point though. There is tons of electricity in the office. Touch the filing cabinet. POW. Grab something off the printer. ZING. I don’t know why I’m surprised every time it happens. But I am.

Since realizing the potent force of electrons, or protons, or Jimmy Neutron, I’ve had one goal. To have an intern shock his mouth on the metal door handle to our office. Why? I have no idea. But I nearly got one to do it. We locked the door, double locked in fact using a lock on the ground, to ensure that the door wouldn’t fling open and deteeth him. He chickened out. But just by getting close, the two of us have been close since he left the office, nearly two years ago.

What else makes a strong intern? Killer guest posts for one. For another, being neither heard nor seen, yet managing to keep my outbox empty of clutter. Not calling me “Bud” in the hall is a major one. You should also keep your shoes on while at the copier. Where I work, summer interns are a special level of intern. During the school year, the truly devoted are interns. Once summer hits, everyone whose Dad or Mom is owed a favor gets in. You can spot these gems by their designer duds, high heels, couture bags, too much David Yurman, and Barack Obama pins.

While we’re fondly recalling intern memories (not fondling), here are a few more.

*Telling a managing partner at the firm picnic that he was a summer associate in his second year of law school, when in reality he was an intern in his sophomore year of college.

*An 18 year old getting totally hammered at an Orioles game, having his car impounded, and being forced to stay in a hotel near the stadium. It being a work night, he drove in the next day directly from Baltimore, neglecting his hygienic duties.

*An intern who in the matter of one week had her dorm catch fire, her car blocked in on the street, and a mono scare, all which prevent her from showing up to work on time.

It is wonderful to take part in guiding these brilliant young minds that are so full of hope and promise. We are fortunate to see these rising stars who look down on the entry level jobs in the office that none of them could even hope to get. Here’s to them.

The Lamentations of Lowry - Chapter 8: La Revolución

I’m going to be a little presumptuous here, possibly trespassing on Massimo’s turf, but I wanted to outline a few things that I don’t think have any place in our society after The Revolution:

• Bathtub Cheese: Not much can be said about this.
• The Jonas Brothers: These three skinny-pants wearing brats are terrible singers. I’ve had to sit through them twice now, on two different reality results shows, and I don’t like them, at all, yet the Disney machine has thrust, thrust them upon us. At least they appear to be playing instruments.
• Skinny Jeans on women: Sorry. They don’t look good on anyone. They actually do make your butt look big. They are like this fluffy little skirts that always seem to be worn by girls with more generous proportions and that also fail to flatter 99% of the wearers. 
• Ear gauging: It never fails to give me the heebie jeebies.
• Che Guevara and anything having to do with him.
• Progressive Income Taxes
• Mandatory participation in Social Security

This is far from exhaustive. Share your thoughts below. We’ll talk about what will be part of the Revolution in a later post.

The Lamentations of Lowry - Chapter 7: On the Role of Business

I am infuriated by the show put on last week on Capitol Hill with regard to “Big Oil.” As has become the practice in the last several years, oil executives were summoned to Congress to answer for the crime of making money.

Last Friday’s NYT had an informative piece about the sideshow, and I find the politicians utterly unconvincing in both their criticisms of the oil firms and their attempts to seem one with the common man. Most offensive was this statement (if it can be called such) by ultra-left liberal Maxine Waters of (surprise, surprise) California:

 

Milton Friedman famously wrote:

There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

The CEO of ExxonMobil would agree. He said that his company’s “corporate social responsibility” is to produce more energy. When I heard Water’s outrageous comment about nationalizing oil companies, I was incredulous. Then I heard talk from Obama of a $15 billion oil profit tax:

The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance for people who can’t afford their energy bills.

The profits right now are so remarkable that one could trim them 10 percent or so, which would turn out to be somewhere in the $15 billion range,” said Jason Grumet, an adviser to the Obama campaign.

Just a little trim, said the mohel. Hillary’s on board too:

Clinton said she plans to introduce legislation to create a strategic energy fund, largely paid for by an excess profits tax on big oil companies, who she noted earned a combined $113 billion in profits last year.

She estimated that the profits tax and a repeal of other tax breaks for the oil industry could pump $50 billion into the energy fund over two years and pay for an array of tax incentives and for $9 billion in new research initiatives for wind, solar and other alternative energy resources. Oil companies could escape the tax if they reinvested profits into similar programs.

 When I heard her pronounce that plan in a soundbite my lamentation spilled into rage. I yelled, “It’s not your damn money!” I should mention that I was alone in my car and I yelled very loud. That money belongs to the shareholders, groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Black Police Association, and perhaps even you and I.

I care far less about the image of our foreign policy internationally than I do our economic policy. Talk like this undermines the most robust and dynamic economy in the world. There is tremendous trust in our economic system. To even hear someone mention nationalization of private industry in a public forum, even someone as daffy as Maxine Waters, puts fear in me. Did I wake up in the middle of Atlas Shrugged?

The Un-Manager

This post is dedicated to Joey, whose disgust with the Obamenon is apparent (and justified).

(Speaking of guys named Joe, where is Joe Millah?)

As Mittites we extolled his virtues as a manager. Obama has demonstrated that he is the Un-Manager. As defined in Lowdogg’s Lexicon:

-Noun; One who desires the fruits of management without the labor; also one who takes credit for the “good stuff.” blaming everything else on anything else (underlings, drugs, genetics, a vast right-wing conspiracy)

ABC News’ Jake Tapper has a pretty scathing post about Obama’s penchant to blame his staff for campaign missteps. There are at least ten clear times where Obama has blamed mistakes, gaffes, and faux pas on staffers. I understand that you can’t always stop your employees from saying the wrong thing, but Obama has attempted to explain the sending of written documents from his official offices as actions for which he holds no responsibility. The fact that he was “not aware,” and therefore not responsible is cause for deep concern.

I work in a service business. I have employees. If there is a mistake, I pay for it, in more ways than one. Thousands of other people take responsibility for such things. That is the mature and responsible course for a leader to take.

Is it too much to expect the man auditioning for the country’s top management post to do that same?