Category: News and Opinion

This is what I have never mentioned before: that when I made my historic call of Obama’s Iowa primary win exactly six weeks before the caucus (first published 11/23/07); I had gotten some high powered info from impeccably credible sources. The info was in essence that Obama’s campaign had put together a ground organization that was superior to every other candidate (Republican or Democrat); far superior than even Mitt Romney’s. Exactly two months before primary day, Obama had already opened up vibrant campaign offices in near every county and was going to be competitive in near every precinct; my info also showed that the organization would be even further tightened up, tweaked and expanded. Plus, Obama was turning out record crowds to his events; had loads of energized volunteers (mainly white youngsters who were fired up like the mini-rockets); and was identifying new voters and first time caucus goers- supportive of his candidacy- like nobody’s business.

The main reason I have thought that Mike Bloomberg would not run for President if that third party candidates have never won.

 Whenever I and other skeptics have made this argument, Mike for President boosters and their ditto heads in the press have replied that Mike’s money makes him different- that when Mike spends a billion dollars to get known around the country, he’ll make history.
Now we have a WNBC/Marist poll of New York State voters.

http://www.observer.com/2008/indy-bloomberg-delivers-n-y-democrats

President Reagan wasn’t actually a great tax cutter, he was a great tax shifter, and his shift in the tax burden has remained in place ever since. A weak economy meant that President George HW Bush ended up with less personal income tax revenue despite breaking his “read my lips” tax pledge. President Clinton’s personal tax increases, concentrated at the top of the income distribution, really did increase tax revenues, because that’s where an increasing share of the nation’s income is going. The total federal tax burden, and the federal budget deficit, during the administration of President George W. Bush are different than in similar years of the administrations above. But W’s tax take and budget deficit are very similar to that under President Carter. With the exception of the Clinton Administration, all the additional payroll taxes to “save Social Security” since 1983 have already been spent, with IOUs deposited in federal accounts, and despite those additional revenues the amount of federal debt held by the public is 50% higher as a share of GDP than it was before the Reagan era. These are the findings when one tabulates federal revenues and expenditures as a share of GDP, for representative years of the last five Presidential Administrations, as I have in the attached spreadsheet.

Some days I think I understand a different language than the people who write about politics.

The following appeared in the LA Times in a story about (yawn) Bloomberg running for President.

Television hosts, including Ryan Seacrest of "American Idol," tried to get a straight answer out of Bloomberg during the New Year's Eve countdown. Bloomberg told Seacrest, "I will not run." Three days later, Meredith Vieira of NBC's "Today" show asked him to swear on his daughter Georgina that he wouldn't run. He replied, "I said to Georgina, I'm not running."

Those who have read my posts over the past two years know that state and local policy and regional economic trends, not national policy and macro economic trends, are my main areas of concern and expertise. In particular, right now I am more afraid of the next state budget than unstable, nuclear armed Pakistan. Since part one of the Presidential campaign begins and ends this month, however (with part two not beginning until September) I’ve decided to analyze and write a series of posts on the federal budget. One task in doing so is to try to standardize the measure of federal revenues and expenditures to disentangle the decisions made by each administration from the external conditions that had nothing to do with those decisions. This means adjusting the figures for inflation, and for the resources available in the country, something I do at the state and local level by tabulating state and local revenues, expenditures and debt as a percent of personal income, the best measure available for counties and up, and will do at the national level by tabulating revenues, expenditures and debt per $100,000 of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

I am convinced that many in media just don’t get it; just like many of our elected officials in this country. They wouldn’t recognize a meteorite even if it was hurling straight toward them at one mile per day. They see what they want to see only, and they don’t think deeply. Their visions are usually clouded by their special interests, corporate owners, myopia, greed and/or ego-needs.

Last winter, I told the world that the only thing stopping Barack Hussein (Barry) Obama from being the next president of the USA, is an assassination; either a political or physical one. I also said that if he was fully white (and not just half-white), this race would be a wrap. This bad boy is special with a capital “s”.

The late Rodney Dangerfield was a great comedian. His bread and butter line was: “I tell you, I get no respect”. It was from that set up that he then proceeded to self-deprecate; much to the audience’s enjoyment. I am going to steal Rodney’s line; but I won’t self-deprecate.

Given that blogging-as journalism goes- is a relatively novel methodology, I guess we cannot take ourselves too seriously at this point in time; despite the significant contributions that bloggers have made to news breaking. Remember the Monica Lewinsky/ President Bill Clinton story: that was broken on the blogs; not in mainstream media. There are countless others. Yet I can’t help but proffer that some of us (if not most) who do this, are serious about what we do: inform the political discourse, on local, regional, national and international levels. Thus there is a responsibility to the readers that we be credible, accurate, authentic and genuine.

Now that Rudy has finished a bad 6^th place in Iowa, his campaign is peddling the line that he never really competed there.

I guess they have to explain why he received half as much support as Ron Paul even after Rudy “won” an early debate by demanding an apology from Paul.

Don’t buy the BS!

Almost two months ago, I predicted-ahead of everyone else on the blogs or anywhere in media in the world- that Barack Obama will win the Iowa caucus. Most people thought I was kidding; especially since my prediction was made before the polls started coming in, showing that he was consistently doing well in them. I am not going into why I pulled this off; sometimes you just have hold on to your trade secrets. Yet, any one who has followed my writings on Obama since January last year, knows that I have been consistent in my analysis and fears. Tonight my prediction came through and true; Barack Obama won in Iowa. This is one of the biggest political stories in the history of the USA. Ever.

Imagine the top executives of a corporation voting each other shares of stock, enriching themselves and diluting shareholder equity. Imagine elected officials getting together with the lobbyists for a select group of interests, handing out billions of dollars in favors, and immediately raising taxes and cutting services to pay for it. In that case, people might finally realize what is happening in this country in general, and in Albany in particular, and do what it takes to stop it. But that isn't the way it works. What you generally have is a two-part fleecing,and by the time the hammer falls on the victims everyone has forgotten all about the beneficiaries.

In business, in good times stock options are issued but offset by share buybacks, so stockholder's equity is not diluted — until later when unfortunately "circumstances beyond anyone's control" require that new stock be issued and capital infusions sought. And in politics the winners, the abusers, get their favors paid out of the public treasury funded by debts, deferred costs, advanced revenues, and higher returns. And then when pension funds are going broke and debt service starts eating the budget, there is "no choice" but to make "tough decisions" and raise taxes, cut benefits, cut spending, and raise fees. Those tough choices somehow never include taking back any tax breaks, excessive spending levels, and rich pensions and benefits for those cashing out. "Realism" requires that others pay the price, and since the price has been deferred as part of the two-part fleecing, it must be paid with interest.