“Now just do everything that is written down here and you are in the club. You want to be in the club don’t you Barack?”
In a previous post we noted that if the Koch Brothers really wanted to get even richer they’d be calling for larger government not a smaller one. Big government, absolutely, indisputably works for the already rich and connected. A small government which allows room for entrepreneurs and innovation on the other hand works for the middle class and those who are willing to work hard.
Basically a crony economy is a plantation economy. The big shots control the levers of government, which control the everyday lives of the “serfs.”
A free enterprise economy on the other hand empowers the serfs who are willing to strike out on their own and create new value in the economy.
The aristocracy has always hated an empowered merchant class. It’s no different today.
Aetna has more than trippled in stock price since Obamacare passed. It’s almost like the law was written FOR them or something.
That’s nice. It sure is good to know that the crony deal of the century (so far) Obamacare, is working out for the giant insurance companies. I was worried for them.
I’m joking of course since the giant health insurance companies along with Big Pharma wrote a good piece of the law. A law which was not even supported by a majority of Americans but was forced through Congress on questionable procedural grounds. A law which has now financially addicted a good portion of the American people like it was designed to. Yep, good times for the health insurance companies.
He made it through one scandal a little while back involving a private jet and a – ahem – “special trip” to the Dominican Republic. The below issue predates that episode but has just been revealed.
And people say New Jersey is corrupt.
What’s amazing is Chelsea’s parents were “dead broke” back in 2000 but now she and her husband are hanging out with Jamie Dimon the CEO of JPMorgan. They’ve come so far.
Sometimes things go the wrong way even for the politically connected. I’m sure Chelsea and her husband will get by somehow however.
This is from 2013. He tells the story, the lie, with such smoothness. Just what one wants in a news anchor.
We’ve been writing about this pretty much from the day we started at ACC. The employment numbers are not accurate. There are many many people who are suffering in this economy. Many more than the official 5.6% unemployment rate would indicate. Now the CEO of the polling company Gallup has felt compelled to make the point also.
You should be concerned about President Obama’s plans to raise taxes, even if you aren’t one of his main targets for tax hikes. Your retirement could be at stake.
Earlier this week the president finally revealed his budget proposal. He wants to increase spending, increase the deficit, and increase taxes, all while promising to simplify the tax code. “Simplify” is an odd way of putting it, considering that his proposals would actually make the tax code even more complex.
Most Americans might not be too concerned about his plans to raises taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but they might be concerned about his proposals to change the tax treatment of retirement accounts.
Politico made light of a provision known as “The Mitt Romney Loophole,” but failed to mention the other ways the president wants to change the tax treatment of retirement savings. Wealthy Americans will not be the only investors affected by these proposals.
Market Watch went through the budget and found that there are more than a dozen provisions in the budget that target retirement accounts. They aren’t all bad, but the proposal to change the rules on Roth IRAs would hit middle class savers the hardest.
Under the Obama plan employees would no longer be allowed to convert traditional retirement accounts to Roth IRAs. Further, he wants to impose required minimum distributions (RMD) on Roth IRAs, which, according to Market Watch, is the most egregious proposal.
Unlike traditional IRAs, contributions are made to Roth IRAs after taxes, but then they aren’t taxed again on earnings that accumulate over the years. Currently people can withdraw as much or as little from these accounts as they like any time after the age of 59½.
Jeffrey Levine of Market Watch had this to say about the Roth IRA proposal:
“This is one of the most egregious proposals in the entire budget. Countless individuals made Roth IRA conversions over the last 17 years, and many of them did so, in part, due to the fact that Roth IRAs have no required minimum distributions. To change the rules now, after people have already made these decisions, would be terribly unfair and would constitute a tremendous breach of the public’s trust. At the very least, the administration should grandfather any existing Roth IRA money into the “old” rules should this provision ever become law.”
Pres. Obama’s claims of helping the middle class are belied by his actions. He only scrapped his plan to tax 529 college savings plans after a big public outcry. He did propose some tax breaks, but even those would only help about a quarter of middle class families.
On top of that, he wants to nearly double the cigarette tax which will hurt lower income Americans the most. Now he has this proposal to change the rules on millions of responsible, hard-working Americans who have been saving for retirement.
It is unlikely that any of Pres. Obama’s proposals will pass under the current Congress. That doesn’t mean that these ideas will go away. The national debt is a staggering $18.1 trillion, and unfunded liabilities come to an astronomical $94 trillion.
Collectively, Americans have more than $10 trillion saved in retirement accounts. That’s a lot of money to be left untaxed as the mountain of debt continues to grow.
Article courtesy of Karen Beseth at Watchdog.org
The post Oh, Great: Obama Budget Targets Your Retirement Accounts appeared first on Daily Surge.
"Glenn Greenwald's Plan to Poke, Prod, and Piss Off the Powerful," produced and hosted by Todd Krainin. About 42 minutes. Original release date was February 3, 2015 and original writeup is below.
Glenn Greenwald is a lawyer who has lost all interest in making legal arguments. The reason for his indifference should terrify anyone who believes that the law, and not arbitrary decision-making by government officials, should govern a nation. Asked whether NSA mass surveillance is legal under any conceivable interpretation of United States law, Greenwald told ReasonTV:
"I think it’s important to understand, when we talk about what’s legal, is the extent to which our institutions that determine legality have been completely co-opted, either by the other branches of government, or just by the post 9/11 fearmongering and hysteria that have subsumed federal judges as much as they have everybody else – if not more so."
Greenwald's experience in uncovering our national secrets – from deep within our security apparatus to the FISA courts – has taught him that sometimes the law doesn't matter. When the government is determined to act outside of its constitutional restraints, justifications will be made, legal memoranda will be written, in order that the outcome will be determined by a contest of institutional power.
Reason TV traveled to McGill University in Montréal to present Glenn Greenwald with Reason Foundation's 2014 Lanny Friedlander Prize. The prize honors media entrepreneurs who expand human freedom by increasing our ability to express ourselves, engage in debate, and generate new ways of understanding the power of "free minds and free markets."
In this case, Greenwald has earned the honors for standing up for some of the bedrock principles that have been neglected in an age of national security and mass surveillance. Since breaking the story of NSA abuses, he has championed whistleblowers, andschooled establishment journalists in the meaning of the first amendment. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Today he's a subject of Citizenfour, an Academy Award nominated documentary film about Edward Snowden.
Greenwald has not only broken the biggest news story in a generation, he’s following it up by co-founding The Intercept, a new magazine that aims to shake up American journalism.
Video runs about 42 minutes.
Produced and hosted by Todd Krainin. Camera by Jim Epstein and Josh Swain.
CONTENTS
1:20 - ACCOUNTABILITY. Will anyone be held responsible for the mass violation of Internet privacy?
5:49 - LEGALITY. Is blanket NSA surveillance legal under any possible interpretation of the law?
8:59 - THE INTERCEPT. What's Greenwald's new publication all about?
11:18 - JOURNALISM. Objective vs. subjective; the democratizing power of the Internet; should journalism be backed by billionaires?
22:19 - INSIDERS vs. OUTSIDERS. How the establishment uses shame to maintain the status quo.
27:30 - ADVERSARIAL JOURNALISM. The virtues of excessive criticism.
31:08 - TYRANNY. The changing views of government in light of NSA surveillance.
33:27 - POLITICAL REACTION. Hypocrisy on the Left, mixed reaction on the Right.
36:03 - POLITICAL ACTION. Is politics the best means for reform?
38:12 - REASON MEDIA AWARDS. Reaction to winning the 2014 Lanny Friedlander Prize.
40:16 - THE LIBERTARIAN/PROGRESSIVE COALITION. The new political paradigm.
For a full transcript please visit the original article here.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth II's corgis is coming to an end.
*
Craft beer novices, here's the scoop on porters and stouts.
*
While some scientists will adamantly champion facts and reason above superstition, these five historical geniuses managed to believe in both science and magic.
*
Elgin Park, USA is a quaint little American town—extremely little, in that it's constructed entirely of tiny, vintage-style scale models.
*
Evidence from the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer suggests that genius playboy billionaire philanthropist Tony Stark/Iron Man isn't so smart after all, and maybe doesn't even understand elementary physics.
*
Rather than sending out the usual perfunctory "we're having a baby!" emails, some expecting parents have chosen to have a little more fun with their pregnancy announcements.
*
There may be a literary scandal brewing as suspicions begin to cloud news of To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee's upcoming novel.
There has been a cute little meme circulating on the internet which I use as the featured image for this post. This idea being… apparently… that in Australia the minimum wage is higher than the US yet the price of the commodity, here a burger from McDonald’s, is cheaper. Therefore, it is evil capitalist plutocrats who are screwing the people. And, presumably, the way to fix that problem is not to improve your skill set and move to a better job but to unleash government on the evil capitalists, take their sh** and give it to you. That is the American way, right?
Life is rarely as simple as a Facebook meme.
Australia has several minimum wages. While someone 21 and older working at McDonalds does get $16+ an hour, not every employee gets that and the data are in Australian dollars (conversion tool)
This has the predictable impact:
To start, some Australians actually make less than the adult minimum wage. The country allows lower pay for teenagers, and the labor deal McDonald’s struck with its employees currently pays 16-year-olds roughly US$8 an hour, not altogether different from what they’d make in the states. In an email, Greg Bamber, a professor at Australia’s Monash University who has studied labor relations in the country’s fast food industry, told me that as a result, McDonald’s relies heavily on young workers in Australia. It’s a specific quirk of the country’s wage system. But it goes to show that even in generally high-pay countries, restaurants try to save on labor where they can.
The real question, of course, is the purchasing power represented by that minimum wage. If you compare standard of living in Sydney to Atlanta you see that it is about 40% more expensive to live in Sydney. And when you look at comparisons of standards of living between nations, the US ranks above Australia.Overall, when cost of living is factored in, the Australian worker is little further ahead than his American counterpart:
What’s more, there are multiple misconceptions about comparing the minimum wage across countries. The minimum wage in Australia, for example, is age dependent. For an 18-year-old worker (remember, most minimum wage earners in the U.S. are 16- to 24-year-olds), the minimum wage is 11.52 Australian dollars ($10.20). For a first-year apprentice, on the other hand, the minimum wage is only AU$9.28 ($8.22).
Consumer prices are also lower in the U.S. than Australia, so after adjusting for prices, the purchasing power equivalent of the Australian minimum wage for 18-year-olds is only $7.16 — about 9 cents less than the U.S. minimum wage. Even currency-adjusted comparisons are flawed — the gap is much smaller when you take purchasing power into account, and it’s almost non-existent for young workers.
What is also striking is that the number of minimum wage workers in Australia (1.5 million) is approximately equal to the number of minimum wage workers in the United States (1.52 million) though the US workforce is orders of magnitude larger. The implication in this number is that the artificially high minimum wage has acted to stultify upward mobility in the work place. If anything, it looks as though the price of the Big Mac works independently from the minimum wage:
The minimum wage, far from benefiting workers, acts as a restraint on contract rights, it forces the cost of goods and services up, and, in the long run, it destroys small businesses and prevents low skill workers from ever getting a step on the employment ladder. Small wonder that Obama wants to raise it.
The post The minimum wage and the Big Mac appeared first on RedState.
By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is informed of their covert activities. It is true that the committee hearings and activities are closed to the public; but at least the people’s representatives in Congress insure some accountability for these secret agencies.
It is little known, however, that there is a federal agency that tops the others in secrecy by a country mile. The Federal Reserve System is accountable to no one; it has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations. The Federal Reserve, virtually in total control of the nation’s vital monetary system, is accountable to nobody – and this strange situation, if acknowledged at all, is invariably trumpeted as a virtue. – Murray N. Rothbard from The Case Against the Fed
We traveled all the way to the Gosling's family factory in Bermuda, to learn how to make a Dark 'n Stormy from the originators.
...
Whether you’re traveling by plane, train or automobile, lessen your stress with the following tips, apps, services and devices.
...
The Gosling's Family Reserve Old Rum is a far cry from the stuff you used to hammered back at the frat house. This high-end elixir is aged longer -- much longer -- and is judged against cognac and high-end bourbon whiskey.
...It's that time of year. When I introduce my newest photography collaborator here on Vinography, who will bring you stunning wine related images every Friday for the next year.
For some of you photographer George Rose needs no introduction. You might be staring at his photos as your desktop background or screen saver already, since I've featured his images a couple of times over the last few years.
For those of you who haven't met George, he's an accomplished wine marketer in addition to a master behind the lens.
As a photographer George Rose traveled a long and winding road through the elite world of popular music, film and sports -- eventually leading him to Northern California's Wine 
Country. During a prolific 17-year career as a photojournalist in Los Angeles in the '70s and '80s, Rose developed a remarkable and historic body of photographic work focused on popular culture.
In the late 1970s, Rose served six years as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. His independent assignments, focused primarily on the entertainment industry, were published in USA Today, Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone. His images from this era are collected in the 2008 book entitled Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Other Perversities
published by Ten Speed Press.
From 1982 to 1996 Rose prowled the sidelines of the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders games as a photographer for the National Football League. Thousands of his images have been published in officially sanctioned NFL books, calendars, trading card and game day programs.
In the 1980s, Rose headed north to Ukiah, where he owned and published the Mendocino Grapevine, an award-winning Northern California weekly county newspaper. It was during this period that he became friendly with the Fetzer family (owners of Fetzer Vineyards), planting the seeds of a future career in wine. Despite the rigors of publishing, Rose maintained his close relationship with USA Today and a handful of other national publications throughout the 1980s.
For the past twenty years, Rose has held four high-level public relations positions in Northern California's Wine Country. He began his wine journey -- though some might call it a "career detour" -- by becoming Director of Public Relations at Mendocino County's Fetzer Vineyards in 1991. In 1998 he moved forty-five minutes down Highway 101 to Sonoma County, where he took on duties as Public Relations Director for Clos du Bois and its parent wine company, Allied Domecq Wines USA.
In 2003, the late Jess Jackson tapped Rose to become Vice President of Public Relations for Kendall-Jackson, America's top premium wine producer. Rose was responsible for all Kendall-Jackson communications until his departure at the end of 2008. He is currently Communications Director at J Vineyards & Winery.
Rose is a recipient of a 1987 World Press Photo Award for news, and was named California "Newspaper Photographer of the Year" in 1976 by the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the Los Angeles Times.
Somehow finding the energy and time to chase the light while holding down his day job, George continues to document the seasonal changes in California's wine country and travels the world as a contributor to Getty Images. His vineyard photos have been used in numerous publications and calendars throughout the world of wine, and in 2007, Chronicle Books published a collection of those images in a book entitled The Art of Terroir
Please join me in welcoming George back to Vinography. I hope you enjoy his images as much as I do.
Prison breaks are a pretty rare event. When they do happen, almost all of the fugitives are recaptured. For example, in California, 98.5 percent of all escapees between 1977 and 2005 have been recaptured—most of the time, within the first few hours or days after the escape. However, there are a handful of people who […]
The post 10 Prison Escapees Who Eluded Capture For Decades appeared first on Listverse.
When the draft was eliminated in 1973, most Americans were happy to see the divisive policy disappear. Compulsory military service—particularly during the Vietnam War—was a thing to be feared by those eligible and by their loved ones. However, there are several solid arguments in favor of reinstituting the draft. 10The Draft Connects Civilians With The […]
The post 10 Arguments In Support Of Bringing Back The Draft appeared first on Listverse.
For sale is the world’s only 1965 Volkswagen stretch microbus . . . with 33-windows and a ragtop sunroof. This bus was built by a VW-only restoration shop in Southern California for use as a limousine on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
Yours for just 220K.
It seems like our portable devices run out of energy just when we need a last little boost the most, hence this award-winning design to provide a jolt in dire situations.
Lightweight, mobile and recyclable, the Mini Power battery comes in three different sizes corresponding to the estimated extra life held within each: 2 hours, 4 hours or 6 hours.
Developed by Tsung Chih-Hsien, the idea is to provide people with something easy to carry but likewise simple to purchase on the go from corner stores and ultimately disposable for ease of (re)use. The concept earned its creator a Red Dot Design award but remains a conceptual prototype for now.
The U.S. military is pretty deeply involved in studying the ocean and gathering information on tides, currents, weather conditions, and potential dangers underwater. Until now, they’ve employed a variety of methods, including strapping cameras to trained dolphins. But a new unmanned underwater vehicle called GhostSwimmer could outshine all of the current techniques by looking and acting just like a fish.
The swimming drone weighs nearly 100 pounds and is about five feet long; it propels itself through the water by oscillating its tail just like a real fish. It’s the size of a tuna but takes on the appearance of a small shark with a dorsal fin that protrudes above the water when the drone is swimming near the surface. It can operate in depths from 10 inches up to 300 feet, making it ideal for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. The Navy points out that it can also help with inspecting the hulls of the U.S.’s own vessels.
Operators have the choice to send the drone out on its own, untethered, to explore and gather info. In that case, it has to surface periodically to transmit its information to the base station. It can also be operated on a 500-foot tether, which is an ideal setup for inspecting ships’ hulls because it can transfer data in real time.
GhostSwimmer was developed with Boston Engineering to be the next in a long line of emerging technology gadgets used by the U.S. military to get their jobs done more efficiently. Although the drone’s testing phase has been completed, there’s no word from the Navy on when or where it might be deployed – so it’s still a good idea to think twice before approaching a swimming shark to check for an antenna on its head.
A lovely design from concept to execution, these silent-running wind power generators are designed to look like abstract trees, combining elements of sculptural art and sustainable energy creation.
With the rustling of leaves in mind, New Wind has been developing this design to work with low-cost materials and modular parts that can be packed into boxes then shipped to and assembled on sites around the world.
For now, prototypes have gone up in Paris to gauge public reaction but so far opinions are positive: these don’t exhibit the same tacky fakery found in semi-camouflaged cell towers, managing to look nice while remaining clearly artificial. Additionally, the distribution of power generation (described below) makes the entire system run quietly so as not to add to urban noise.
Aesthetics aside, the technology is quite ingenious: tiny blades turn inside each ‘leaf’, in turn feeding power back into the branches, trunk and ultimately nearby lights, wifi stations and/or other things needing electric power (much in the same way a leaf in nature generates energy and feeds it back into the rest of a plant.
Our February/March issue went way South, all the way to Grenada, one of five islands and other Caribbean destinations that—we hope—provided a warm escape when it arrived in chilly January. But it wasn’t all turquoise water, sand, and sunshine. Closer to home, we also profiled a Nashville country music memory-keeper, documented an historic North Carolina Piedmont hunt, and discovered some of the best barbecue you’ve never tasted. Here are some of our favorite photos from the issue that didn’t make print.
Photograph by Peter Taylor
Hounds track rabbits through a field of cotton in the North Carolina Piedmont.
>Read the article
Photograph by Peter Taylor
A barn on historic hunting grounds in Anson County, North Carolina.
>See more photographs
Photograph by Michael Turek
Headed into the Caribbean's blue waters from the island of Grenada.
>See more Caribbean hot spots
Photograph by Andrew Kornylak
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, chef Bill Smith's recipe for "basic" but very rich ice cream—including 32 egg yolks.
>Read the article
Photograph by Johnny Autry
So good it disappears fast: Nashville-style hot quail with black pepper ranch, a recipe by Jackson, Mississippi, chef Jesse Houston.
>Get the recipe
Photograph by Michael Turek
Another outtake from our Caribbean cover shoot.
>See the chosen cover image
Photograph by Margaret Houston
Weighing pig skins at locals' favorite barbecue joint, Hite's, in West Columbia, South Carolina
>Read the article
Photograph by Margaret Houston
The menu at Hite's Bar-B-Que in West Columbia, South Carolina.
>Read the article
Photograph by Jen Judge
Lush greenery swaths the island of Dominica.
>Read the article
Photograph by Jen Judge
An aerial view of the island of Culebra.
>Read the article
Photograph by David McClister
Country music performer and preservationist Marty Stuart stands outside his Hendersonville, Tennessee, home.
>Read the article
“There’s no photos allowed, sir.” At first I’m insulted, and then I realize that I’m the one that has crossed the line. Of course, there wouldn’t be photos allowed at The Polo Bar. Not because the restaurant has anything to hide, but because the mere sight of a cell phone might upset the meticulous atmosphere at Ralph Lauren’s time warp in the form of a Fifth Avenue dining room.
You see, The Polo Bar is not a restaurant from 2015. It is a restaurant from 1985. Ralph Lauren’s first New York restaurant is not a place for cell phones, or Instagrams, or status updates. Nor is it a restaurant for small portions, or chopped salads, or juice cleanses. It is maximal dining. The bacon topped burgers are as thick as the plaid pillows which sit upon the even larger leather banquettes. The perpendicular wood paneling is as dense as the steak-cut fries – which naturally are served in a silver bucket. The caramelized onion popovers are as golden brown as the horses, which are depicted over and over in the innumerable equestrian paintings which line the dining room. The cocktails are as neatly arranged as the antique mallets which hang, as if in a Greenwich mudroom, next to the coat check.
The Polo Bar is not a Polo photo shoot come to life. It is a trip back to the era that inspired the Polo aesthetic to begin with.
That the restaurant is located underground, beneath Polo’s recently opened Midtown flagship, is no coincidence. It is a buried time capsule that you can actually step into. If you’re fortunate enough to get a reservation that is. Had The Polo Bar had existed in 1987, Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko would’ve eaten there instead of the 21 Club. The attentive service, the Polo coat wearing doorman, the oversize dishes, the country-club setting, it is all a throwback to the days when a man’s suit was as broad as his expensive account.
They even let you take your own photos now. If you can snag a reservation that is.
