Anti-tea party drivel

Posted on April 10, 2009 by ChrisA

From the

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Tea Party coverage

Posted on April 10, 2009 by ChrisA

What say Daily Camera? Your silence on the Tea Parties only reflects on you, not that your readers care. Guess you got that part figured out! 😉

I bet you if there was a protest of taxpayers demanding we all pay more taxes, that’d get covered. Not this. Not now. Why?

Because populist rage doesn’t matter? Or this populist rage doesn’t matter?

I just wonder if there were a New York Times or CNN back in the day of the real Boston Tea Party, would either so much have bothered sending a reporter or a crew to cover the event?

I doubt it.

Why cover some nuts throwing tea into Boston Harbor when you harbor doubts about the nuts throwing the tea. Until you discover they’re not nuts.

It’s not about tea. And you’re the one on the wrong side. Not of the protest, but of something else: history.


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D’oh!

Posted on April 9, 2009 by ChrisA

The Simpson stamps are out.

Hat-tip to Erika.

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The Health insurance entitlement mentality

Posted on April 9, 2009 by ChrisA

There are definintely some “moral hazard” issues involved.

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The uninsured: How many?

Posted on April 9, 2009 by ChrisA

One thing is for sure, the number of US citizens cronically uninsured is exageratted. That said, this article makes interesting reading on the health insurance crisis and there are good comments, along with some “typical” comments, on both sides of the issue.

H/T to Newmarks Door.

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Message to the rich…

Posted on April 9, 2009 by ChrisA

Leave now while you still can. Bill Whittle suggests the “Rush Limbaugh getting out of New York” on a much grander scale.

Well, I read this article in the Washington Post, and I thought: there you have it. The top ten percent, that pays sixty percent of the total income tax and which allows the bottom half – HALF! – to pay nothing… Those horrible, greedy bastards are not using their free-will generosity as “efficiently” as the government can, so let’s just take more of their money and call it square.

So let me now send a personal message to The Rich in America…

As an American and a patriot, I implore you – I go to my knees and beg you – LEAVE NOW.

Leave. Just go away. Retire to the Cayman Islands or Bermuda or wherever, but do it now, please, while you still have some love for this country. Close your companies, fire your employees, shutter your factories and offices, sell your property, and take all of that somewhere else… better yet: somewhere scenic but poverty-stricken. Somewhere that could use some wealth creation. Somewhere that people simply are grateful to have a job in the first place. Somewhere where you will be appreciated.

You are not welcome in America any more. Take your wealth and prosperity and inventiveness and hard work and vision and insight and bold risk-taking and joy in seeing growth and wealth creation and just go away – right now, before it’s too late. Because if you stay, Joel Berg and Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd will continue to come after you for more and more and more and they will not ever stop – not ever – until you are forced to flee. And when that day comes, you will go with not with fond remembrances and a desire to return home, but rather a black heart and hard and bitter memories.

So on behalf of those few of us who still believe in the Land of Opportunity, I beg you and implore you, in the name of our common patriot ancestors who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that we could become so spoiled and ungrateful: take your 60% of the total income taxes and just go away.

That’s what Jim Rogers basically did when he moved to Singapore, except I don’t believe he is avoiding US taxes based on interviews I’ve heard. I’m not clear on the tax ramifications of moving to another country. If they can’t extradite you I suspect you can do whatever you want as long as you aren’t planning to move back or return for a visit. In general I believe the United States expect you to pay taxes on your earned income and capital gains regardless of your place of residence.

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Stoopid bicyclists on Hwy 36

Posted on April 8, 2009 by ChrisA

Auto drivers beware, the stoopid bicyclists are out on Highway 36 north of Boulder heading south into Boulder during “dusk” times.

Last night I headed into Boulder to pick up our younger daughter. It’s about 7:40 PM and the first cyclists I see has a blinking light on the back of his seat. Very good. Then I come up on a 2nd group of three cyclists. One had a blinking light and the other two had none. None of them had any reflective clothing on.

This was about a mile north of the the old Beech aircraft buildings. I can’t imagine they would reach their destination before dark.

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Allentown is stoopid

Posted on April 8, 2009 by ChrisA

The City of Allentown uses red tape to discourage Tea Party organizers. This is exactly what I would expect from City of Boulder as well. After all they used the same type of trick to almost bring a halt to the New Years Day polar bear swim at the Boulder Rez.

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Missing your butt?

Posted on April 8, 2009 by ChrisA

Rachel has the answer.

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Buffet Stock Holding: Dec 31st 2008

Posted on April 8, 2009 by ChrisA

Berkshire Hathaway’s equity holding from Warren Buffett’s 2008 shareholder letter. Note this does not include Moody’s or Burlington Northers Santa Fe due to different accounting treatment since Berkshire owns greater than 20% of the company.

Shares Company %Co Owned Cost Market
151,610,700 American Express Co 13.1 $ 1,287 $ 2,812
200,000,000 The Coca-Cola Co 8.6 1,299 9,054
84,896,273 ConocoPhillips 5.7 7,008 4,398
30,000,000 Johnson & Johnson 1.1 1,847 1,795
130,272,500 Kraft Foods Inc 8.9 4,330 3,498
3,947,544 POSCO 5.2 768 1,191
91,941,010 The Proctor & Gamble Co 3.1 643 5,684
22,111,966 Sanofi-Aventis 1.7 1,827 1,404
11,262,000 Swiss Re 3.2 773 530
227,307,p00 Tesco plc 2.9 1,326 1,193
75,145,426 U.S. Bancorp 4.3 2,337 1,879
19,944,300 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc 0.5 942 1,118
1,727,765 The Washington Post Co 18.4 11 674
304,392,068 Wells Fargo & Co 7.2 6,702 8,973
Others 6,035 4,870
Total Common Stocks Carried at Market $ 37,135 $ 49,073

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Missoula, MT

Posted on April 8, 2009 by ChrisA


From the World Webcam on the sidebar…

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Largest holders of United States Debt

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

The top 5 are:

Federal Reserve $4,800 billion
Mutual Fund 769
China 740
Japan 635
State & Local Gov 525

Slideshow: The 15 Biggest Holders of US Government Debt

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Screwing with the market

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

When government intervenes too strongly in the market the feedback mechanism breaks that provides the market with the correct information so that it can compensate. This certainly happened in housing and the feedback also got messed up in the energy markets but it’s not totally clear to me how (too much money, blatant market manipulation, etc?).

There is no doubt we have the government intervening in the financial and auto markets, an effort that appears to both prevent failure and allow the government to control the pay (and more I’m sure) of private executives and the governance of corporations. Cafe Hayek has a good post on how this type of action messes with market feedback.

If government prevents ineffective producers from failing, the red light on the “economic traffic signal” stops working. Production continues and resources flow when they should halt, destroying wealth instead of creating it.


For example, General Motors is now preparing for bankruptcy. Seems like everyone would be better of if they had started this process months ago?

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The Boulder Climate Action Network

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

Riding to the rescue are all the local Boulder climate experts willing to make living in Boulder only more and more expensive.

A group of local climate scientists, renewable energy experts, green-building consultants, land-use planners, policy specialists and zero-energy architects have a message for the Boulder City Council:

It’s time to get serious about carbon.

The Boulder Climate Action Network is just a few weeks old, but its members are not new to the challenges of climate. Stirred to life by the words of renowned green thinker Hunter Lovins and backed by the extensive resumes of its members — including people who work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Rocky Mountain Institute — “Boulder CAN” is offering to help the city make good on its 2002 pledge to meet the Kyoto Protocol.

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Wiretapping

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

“Illegal” wiretapping was one of the biggest complaints of my liberal friends regarding the Bush administration.

H/T to Instapundit.

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Colorado Tea Parties

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

Get your list of Nationwide Tea Parties scheduled for April 15th here (click on “Tea Party Schedule”.

Below is info on the Denver (Facebook registration required) and Ft. Collins Tea Parties. Not surprisingly Boulder doesn’t have one scheduled. Probably because they never met a tax they didn’t like.


Posted in big government, taxes | 1 Comment

Just because you say so?

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

Yea right.

The failure so far of the U.N. Security Council or other international organization to respond to a weekend rocket launch by North Korea does not signal a “win” for the rogue nation, the State Department said Monday.

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First pitch

Posted on April 7, 2009 by ChrisA

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Boulder County loses to RMCC

Posted on April 5, 2009 by ChrisA

This is “old news” for people who have followed the lawsuit filed by Rocky Mountain Christian Church against Boulder County.

On Monday, federal Judge Robert Blackburn ordered the Boulder County commissioners to approve within 45 days Rocky Mountain Christian Church’s request to expand.


As I’ve mentioned before I’m no fan of big Church’s but anytime the Boulder County Power Troika loses is a good day as far as I’m concerned. It will be interesting to see what happens to the county’s insurance rates at renewal.

Also, one must wonder if having this type of insurance doesn’t create a moral hazard type of situation that encourages the County to fight the lawsuit.

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Buffett ’08: Overpricing Risk

Posted on April 5, 2009 by ChrisA

From the 2008 Berkshire letter to shareholders…

The investment world has gone from underpricing risk to overpricing it. This change has not been minor; the pendulum has covered an extraordinary arc. A few years ago, it would have seemed unthinkable that yields like today’s could have been obtained on good-grade municipal or corporate bonds even while risk-freegovernments offered near-zero returns on short-term bonds and no better than a pittance on long-terms. When the financial history of this decade is written, it will surely speak of the Internet bubble of the late 1990s and the housing bubble of the early 2000s. But the U.S. Treasury bond bubble of late 2008 may be regarded as almost equally extraordinary.
Clinging to cash equivalents or long-term government bonds at present yields is almost certainly a terrible policy if continued for long. Holders of these instruments, of course, have felt increasingly comfortable – in fact, almost smug – in following this policy as financial turmoil has mounted. They regard their judgment
confirmed when they hear commentators proclaim “cash is king,” even though that wonderful cash is earning close to nothing and will surely find its purchasing power eroded over time.

(bold is mine)
Do you know where your money is? At least what’s left of it?

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