Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the July 28, 2015 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/tidbits063015.htm  
Bob Jensen at Trinity University




Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley,

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David Thoreau

My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.
Neville Chamberlain quoting Benjamin Disraeli

The Iran deal is the worst agreement in US diplomatic history
Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, July 3, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iran-deal-is-bad-2015-7

Susan Rice Admits Secret (and terrible) ‘Side Deals’ with Iran ---
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/22/susan-rice-admits-secret-side-deals-with-iran/

All this smoke screen about inspecting Iran's nuclear bomb making plants is smoke screen  What the Iran deal really does is give Iran over $150 billion to buy ready-made and fully-tested  nukes off-the-shelf  from drought-stricken North Korea.
Bob Jensen
Having said that I will sleep nights whether Iran does or does not have nuclear warheads. What worries me more is that nukes in Pakistan's nukes are targets for insane terrorists

Yep, Iran Might Use Some of Their New $150 Billion For Terrorism.
Susan Rice at the USA White House --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2015/07/20/susan-rice-yep-iran-might-use-some-of-their-new-150-billion-for-terrorism-n2027790?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
What she failed to mention is that $150 billion can probably buy working nukes from South Korea and maybe even the Russian mafia.

The Iranian authorities have put to death nearly 700 people so far this year, in an unprecedented spike in executions. Amnesty International said this is the equivalent of three people being killed each day.
Sam Matthew ---
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3172444/Iran-sees-unprecedented-spike-executions-694-people-death-year-claims-Amnesty-International.html

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Arctic sea ice volume increased by more than a quarter after the summers of 2013 and 2014 as a result of unusually cool temperatures, a deviation from the general downward trend of ice levels, according to new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Justin Worland ---
http://time.com/3965996/arctic-sea-ice-melting/?xid=newsletter-brief
Jensen Comment
Go figure! The Year 2014 was purportedly the warmest year on record globally. Scientists warn that the increasing ice in the arctic is not a trend to counter the longer-term melting expected at both poles.

Put another way, the Crimean elite is about to feel the crushing embrace of Vladimir Putin's power vertical. And it is about to learn that being part of Russia means being colonized and cannibalized by Putin's cronies
Brian Whitmore, Radio Free Europe --- http://www.rferl.org/content/russias-second-crimean-invasion/27147300.html#ixzz3goY28o9W

Hungary's government says it is crucial to stem the flow of (Sebian) migrants choosing the Balkans route to reach Europe as an alternative to the dangerous boat trips that have killed many. In tropical temperatures, troops managed to erect the first part of the four-meter-high (13 feet) fence.
Vatican Radio --- http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/07/23/hungary_building_anti-migration_fence_despite_international_/1160437

Anyone can now register to vote (sometimes fraudulently) on Election Day in New Hampshire.
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/NewHampshireVotingFraud.htm

Hassan (Governor of New Hampshire) also vetoed a bill banning the use of cash welfare benefits on alcohol, lottery tickets, firearms and several other items. She plans to sign a different bill banning the use of electronic benefit transfer cards at piercing or tattoo parlors, cigar and smoke shops and marijuana dispensaries.
h
ttp://www.wmur.com/politics/governor-vetoes-30day-residency-voting-requirement/34101140
Drink, smoke pot,  and get tattoos  while your kids go hungry.

The use of food stamps is a case in point. More and more families use food stamps as their primary means of receiving not only groceries but also questionable items for people supposedly living at the subsidence level, such as tobacco products and alcohol. Now the state of New Mexico has decided if people (not recipients with pre-school kids) want food stamps, they’ll have to start working.
John Velisek --- http://www.coachisright.com/new-mexico-tells-burgeoning-ranks-of-freeloading-food-stamp-recipients-to-go-to-work/
Jensen Comment
Those who want to freeload without work can move to New Hampshire

Obama again praises S. Korea for ‘paying teachers the way they pay doctors’ ---
http://www.koreatimesus.com/obama-again-praises-s-korea-for-paying-teachers-the-way-they-pay-doctors/
Jensen Comment
In truth somebody told a whopper to President Obama. In reality most doctors are paid much more than most teachers in South Korea.  Seems like Obama, like virtually all politicians, is weak on fact checking..

Bernie Sanders Despised Democrats In 1980s, Said A JFK (anti-communist) Speech Once Made Him Sick ---
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir/bernie-sanders-despised-democrats-in-1980s-said-a-jfk-speech#.hsy91V3g1

Donald Trump Says McCain No War Hero: ‘I Like People Who Weren’t Captured’
Jamie Weinstein --- http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/18/donald-trump-says-mccain-no-war-hero-i-like-people-who-werent-captured/
Jensen Question
Donald Trump is a lot like ISIS. Just when you think there cannot be something worse there's something worse. Actually this is a Comedian Al Franken plagiarism from 15 years ago. In the liberal media only liberals are allowed to put down GOP war heroes ---
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2015/07/18/al-franken-2000-on-mccain-i-dont-buy-the-war-hero-thing-anybody-can-be-captured/
Has anybody considered the possibility that Democrats may be voting for Trump in primary elections and that Republicans might be trying to defeat Hillary by voting for Bernie in the primaries?
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/NewHampshireVotingFraud.htm

No more Trump deals in NYC's future
NYC Mayor De Blasio --- http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/20/news/trump-de-blasio-new-york-city-contracts/index.html

Trump Leads Nevada Poll with Overwhelming Hispanic Support ---
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trump-leads-nevada-poll-with-overwhelming-hispanic-support-300114592.html
Say what?

Pardoning  all non-violent heroin repeat offenders seemingly will make heroin a whole lot easier to buy on the streets.
Bob Jensen

The most lethal danger facing African Americans in their daily lives is not white, racist officials of the state, but private, violent criminals, typically black, who attack those most vulnerable to them without regard for racial identity ---
Professor Randall Kennedy ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-high-cost-of-letting-criminals-go-1437523819?tesla=y 

From 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds --- No way a cop car will catch up from behind.
Bob Jensen with respect to the new Tesla Model S ---
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/teslas-new-ludicrous-mode-makes-model-s-supercar/
Reminds me of when Sean Connery (read that James Bond) in real life tried and failed to outrun a LA cop. Now he can buy a car that will outrun any cop.

How legal weed could change the future of sex ---
http://fusion.net/story/46023/how-legal-weed-could-change-the-future-of-sex/
Willie Nelson discovered this decades ago.

We'd rather be obese on benefits than thin and working.
Janice and Amber Manzur
John Hill, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11347454/Mother-and-daughter-weigh-a-total-of-43-stone-and-get-34k-a-year-handouts-but-refuse-to-diet.html 

Moocher Hall of Fame --- https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/the-moocher-hall-of-fame/




"Who Won the Krugman-Moore Debate?" Mark Skousen, by Mark Skousen, Townhall, July 20, 2015 --- Click Here
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/markskousen/2015/07/20/who-won-the-krugmanmoore-debate-n2027218?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl 

“I am not a defender of socialism or big government!” — Paul Krugman

It was billed as the Dream Debate of the Century, and it did not disappoint. More than 2,000 people poured into the Celebrity Ballroom at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas, for the explosive debate between Paul Krugman and Steve Moore. Krugman is the #1 New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize winner and foremost Keynesian economist today. Steve Moore is the #1 Wall Street Journal columnist and supply-side economist for the Heritage Foundation. The two are the most prominent proponents of two differing perspectives on the economic policies of the United States.

The debate theme was “How can we best restore the American dream?” The general session lasted an hour and the two argued on a variety of issues — ObamaCare, austerity vs. stimulus, blue state vs red state, the minimum wage and who was the greater economist, Keynes or Adam Smith. (Both agreed it was Adam Smith, but Krugman thought Keynes was a close second and Adam Smith was not a pure advocate of laissez faire.)

Krugman denied he was a socialist or advocate of big government, yet he defended ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, deficit spending, higher taxes and a higher minimum wage. Moore made the case that lower taxes, deregulation and sound money were the keys to higher economic growth.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Krugman is admittedly Keynesian. In my opinion, the difference between Krugman and Keynes is that Keynes was more assuredly not in favor of ever-growing government spending or big government in general. I've never discovered an instance where Krugman advocated reduced government spending.

My other issue with Krugman is his academic integrity. He's widely known for cherry picking data.
 
Paul Krugman --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

. . .

Krugman's columns have drawn criticism as well as praise. A 2003 article in The Economist[ questioned Krugman's "growing tendency to attribute all the world's ills to George Bush," citing critics who felt that "his relentless partisanship is getting in the way of his argument" and claiming errors of economic and political reasoning in his columns. Daniel Okrent, a former The New York Times ombudsman, in his farewell column, criticized Krugman for what he said was "the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assault.

"The Missing Data in Krugman’s German Austerity Narrative" Daniel J. Mitchell, Townhall, February 25, 2014 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2014/02/25/the-missing-data-in-krugmans-german-austerity-narrative-n1800047?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl 

There’s an ongoing debate about Keynesian economics, stimulus spending, and various versions of fiscal austerity, and regular readers know I do everything possible to explain that you can promote added prosperity by reducing the burden of government spending.

. . .

But here’s the problem with his article. We know from the (misleading) examples above (not quoted here)  that he’s complained about supposed austerity in places such as the United Kingdom and France, so one would think that the German government must have been more profligate with the public purse.

After all, Krugman wrote they haven’t “imposed a lot of [austerity] on themselves.”

So I followed the advice in Krugman’s “public service announcement.” I didn’t just repeat what people have said. I dug into the data to see what happened to government spending in various nations.

And I know you’ll be shocked to see that Krugman was wrong. The Germans have been more frugal (at least in the sense of increasing spending at the slowest rate) than nations that supposedly are guilty of “spending cuts.


"Where's the beef? Fast-food franchisees pan NY wage hike," by David Klepper and Verena Dobnik,  Associated Press, July 23, 2015 ---
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FAST_FOOD_WAGES?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-07-23-20-56-43

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to have it his way with New York's fast-food industry - and restaurant owners aren't loving it.

Franchise owners say they're considering a lawsuit against Cuomo's plan to raise the minimum wage in their eateries to $15 an hour, arguing that it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant increase in labor costs that won't apply to retail, landscaping, child care or other traditionally low-wage industries.

"Singling out fast food restaurants while ignoring other industries that hire workers who are paid under $15 is unfair and discriminatory, harms New York workers, and puts some New York businesses - including mine and my fellow New York McDonald's franchisees - at a competitive disadvantage," said Jack Bert, who owns seven locations in Queens.

Continued in article


Uber’s Political Victory in New York, by the Numbers ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-23/uber-s-political-victory-in-new-york-by-the-numbers?cmpid=BBD072315_BIZ
Jensen Comment
Yogi Berra once said"  "It ain't over 'til it's over."


Here you can build customized charts from our database of demographic, economic, and state financial reports data, as well as the Institute for Truth in Accounting's proprietary analysis on state assets and liabilities ---
http://www.statedatalab.org/c/iatNlH15b4c0f99


Minimum Wage
Europe and America are trying to deal with poverty using much higher minimum wages. Their schemes threaten to harm the very people they set out to help.

"A reckless wager," The Economist, July 25, 2015 ---
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21659741-global-movement-toward-much-higher-minimum-wages-dangerous-reckless-wager?fsrc=nlw|hig|23-07-2015|NA

. . .

By moving towards sharply higher minimum wages, policymakers are accelerating into a fog. Little is known about the long-run effects of modest minimum wages (see page 66). And nobody knows what big rises will do, at any time horizon. It is reckless to assume that because low minimum wages have seemed harmless, much larger ones must be, too.

One danger is that a high minimum wage will push some workers out of the labour force for good. A building worker who loses his job in a recession can expect to find a new one when the economy picks up. A cashier with few skills who, following the introduction of a high minimum wage, becomes permanently more expensive than a self-service checkout machine will have no such luck. The British government’s defence of its new policy—that a strong economy will generate enough jobs to replace those lost to a higher minimum wage—is disingenuous: the jobs are still lost. That is why Milton Friedman described minimum wages as a form of discrimination against the low-skilled.

Continued in article

 


Daniel Kahneman --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

Update on Daniel Kahneman:
What would I eliminate if I had a magic wand?  ---
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/18/daniel-kahneman-books-interview


IRS Scandal --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

The IRS Scandal, Days 701-800 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/07/the-irs-scandal-days-701-800.html
Jensen Comment
This has gone on so long that it's easy to forget the main focus of the "IRS Scandal" since many months preceding the USA national election of 2014. The main focus is whether the IRS acquiesced (eagerly) to White House requests to abuse the IRS agency's powers to influence the outcome of the 2014 election. Beyond the original IRS admission of trying to discourage Tea Party political donations, the further scandal probably could have been put to bed if IRS executive Lois Lerner had been willing to back her Congressional testimony by taking an oath that she was telling the truth concerning not receiving her marching orders from the White House.  Instead when asked to take an oath she fell back on her Fifth Amendment rights which have always been perceived as a signal of guilt. What the Republicans really want is to embarrass the White House with evidence that the the IRS was illegally used for partisan politics --- something analogous to Nixon's Watergate. The scandal was exacerbated by the mysterious disappearance of Lois Lerner's IRS emails. 

The IRS scandal on Day 779 just got even worse ---
http://nypost.com/2015/07/07/the-irs-scandal-just-got-even-worse/

So the Obama IRS wasn’t just persecuting right-leaning nonprofits — it was out to prosecute them, too. And with the help of the Obama Department of Justice and FBI.

Via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the watchdog group Judicial Watch just got evidence of the plot. A “DOJ Recap” on an Oct. 8, 2010 meeting tells how officials from the three agencies discussed “several possible theories to bring criminal charges under FEC law” against groups “posing” as tax-exempt nonprofits.

As part of the project, the IRS handed the FBI 21 computer disks with 1.23 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups — nearly every 501(c)(4). This, though federal law generally bans the IRS from sharing such data.

The evidence shows “that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” noted Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his re-election. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information.”

Coninued in article

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


Obama again praises S. Korea for ‘paying teachers the way they pay doctors’ --- Yeah Right! ---
 http://www.koreatimesus.com/obama-again-praises-s-korea-for-paying-teachers-the-way-they-pay-doctors/

 
Jensen Comment
 In truth somebody told a whopper to President Obama. In reality most doctors are paid much more than most teachers in South Korea.

 If this Bernie Sanders wish for the USA came true what would be the incentive for doctors to study 8-12 years in college to learn their craft beyond the college requirements for  most K-12 teachers who qualify to teach in 4-5 years of college and get much longer vacations and more holidays than most doctors?
 

Furthermore in college almost anybody that wants to can major in K-12 education. This is not so for medical schools where the competition for admission is cutthroat.
 
And doctors have by far the highest median student debt burdens in the USA. Education graduates do not even come close on average ---
Click Here
 http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/15/422590257/medicine-law-business-which-grad-students-borrow-the-most?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150715

 

"The Best Arguments for an Iran Deal The heroic assumptions, and false premises, of our diplomacy," by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-arguments-for-an-iran-deal-1436829351?tesla=y

In formal rhetoric, prolepsis means the anticipation of possible objections to an argument for the sake of answering them. So let’s be proleptic about the Iranian nuclear deal, whose apologists are already trotting out excuses for this historic diplomatic debacle.

The heroic case. Sure, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is an irascible and violent revolutionary bent on imposing a dark ideology on his people and his neighborhood. Much the same could be said of Mao Zedong when Henry Kissinger paid him a visit in 1971—a diplomatic gamble that paid spectacular dividends as China became a de facto U.S. ally in the Cold War and opened up to the world under Deng Xiaoping.

But the hope that Iran is the new China fails a few tests. Mao faced an overwhelming external threat from the Soviet Union. Iran faces no such threat and is winning most of its foreign proxy wars. Beijing ratcheted down tensions with Washington with friendly table-tennis matches. Tehran ratchets them up by locking up American citizens and seizing cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Deng Xiaoping believed that to get rich is glorious. Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, a supposed reformer, spent last Friday marching prominently in the regime’s yearly “Death to America, Death to Israel” parade.

If there is evidence of an Iranian trend toward moderation it behooves proponents of a deal to show it.

The transactional case. OK, so Iran hasn’t really moderated its belligerent behavior, much less its antediluvian worldview. And a deal won’t mean we won’t still have to oppose Iran on other battlefields, whether it’s Yemen or Syria or Gaza. But that doesn’t matter, because a nuclear deal is nothing more than a calculated swap. Iran puts its nuclear ambitions into cold storage for a decade. In exchange, it comes in from the cold economically and diplomatically. Within circumscribed parameters, everyone can be a winner.

But a transaction requires some degree of trust. Since we can’t trust Iran we need an airtight system of monitoring and verification. Will the nuclear deal provide that? John Kerry will swear that it will, but as recently as January Czech officials blocked a covert $61 million purchase by Iran of “dual-use” nuclear technologies. A month before that, the U.S. found evidence that Iran had gone on an illicit “shopping spree” for its plutonium plant in Arak. That’s what we know. What do we not know?

Continued in article


Anyone can now register to vote (sometimes fraudulently) on Election Day in New Hampshire.
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/NewHampshireVotingFraud.htm


"A Brief History of Scott Walker’s War Over Higher Education," by Andy Thomason, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/a-brief-history-of-scott-walkers-war-over-higher-education/101819?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
I would not vote for Scott Walker as President, but I think he's done some good things as Wisconsin's governor.
It's a good thing that he does not stand a chance.
 

"Here's the fiery speech that vaulted Scott Walker to the top tier of the Republican field," ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-walker-iowa-speech-running-president-2015-7#ixzz3fmWqgq3X


Fascinating statistics about who voted in the last election ---
 
http://www.businessinsider.com/who-voted-in-the-2014-election-2015-7#ixzz3gKxtxkcm

"Voters Were Just As Diverse In 2014 As They Were In 2008," by Harry Enten, Nate Silver's 5:38 Blog, July 16, 2015 ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/voters-were-just-as-diverse-in-2014-as-they-were-in-2008/ 

. . .

The electorate in 2014 was just as diverse as it was in 2008, even as the election results were so starkly different.

All of these changes are within 0.3 percentage points of the earlier figures, and yet Republicans won the national House vote by 5.6 percentage points in 2014 and lost the national presidential vote by 7.3 percentage points in 2008.

. . .

This phenomenon is different from demographic change, however. Just because the country becomes more diverse doesn’t mean it will become more Democratic. It’s as important to watch the voting patterns within each demographic group — and how they change — as it is to watch the demographic makeup of the electorate.

Continued in article

Donald Trump Says McCain No War Hero: ‘I Like People Who Weren’t Captured’
Jamie Weinstein --- http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/18/donald-trump-says-mccain-no-war-hero-i-like-people-who-werent-captured/
Jensen Question
Donald Trump is a lot like ISIS. Just when you think there cannot be something worse something worse happens. Actually this is a Comedian Al Franken plagiarism from 15 years ago ---
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2015/07/18/al-franken-2000-on-mccain-i-dont-buy-the-war-hero-thing-anybody-can-be-captured/
But there is some dispute about what Trump actually said ---
https://sharylattkisson.com/fact-check-the-washington-post-on-donald-trump-and-john-mccain/

Trump Leads Nevada Poll with Overwhelming Hispanic Support ---
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trump-leads-nevada-poll-with-overwhelming-hispanic-support-300114592.html
Say what?
This was before Trump said McCain was no war hero.

Jensen Comment
Even though "overwhelming Hispanic support" overstates the case, the above quotation seems to support Harry Enten's contention that more diversity does not guarantee that the Democratic Party will have a monopoly on more diversity.


"Europe is trying to hide a giant pile of debt," by Harry S. Dent Jr., Business Insider, July 24, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-trying-to-hide-giant-pile-of-debt-2015-7

It’s kind of like selling goods to consumers with very bad credit and then being surprised when they don’t pay.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
It's pretty much a north versus south thing that's revealed in one graph.
Scroll down the article to see this amazing graph.

The deep debtor nations are known for chronic political corruption, low economic productivity, and bloated public sector spending. This raises real questions about the sustainability of the EU.


"Debt Isn’t Killing Greece. Its Leaders Are The country was poised for 3% growth before Syriza took power. More debt relief would reward loony policies," by Holger Schmieding, The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/greece-can-ease-its-debt-burden-with-reform-1437078320?tesla=y

Half the world seems to be obsessed with debt relief for Greece. The farther observers are from Brussels, Berlin or Frankfurt, the more they seem to believe that only a massive upfront write-off of public debt can save Athens. Some proponents of such a “haircut” have clear motives: Greece wants any relief it can get, and the International Monetary Fund wants to safeguard its own exposure by asking eurozone governments to take losses on their own debt holdings. But in many cases, the haircut enthusiasts simply do not understand the basics.

Debt relief is only a side issue. Getting economic policies right matters much more. A government that pursues radical left-wing policies will suffer the same fate as the populists’ paradise of Venezuela, whether it gets debt relief or not. A country that enacts serious supply-side reforms can enhance its capacity to sustain debt via economic growth and the fall in financing costs that comes with improving credibility.

Continued in article

No Means Yes
Greece Agrees Its Third European Bailout After Marathon Talks
---
http://time.com/3955221/greece-bailout-marathon/?xid=newsletter-brief

The terms of the deal are the harshest Greece has ever faced from its creditors

. . .

The details of the agreement were sketchy. But even from the rough contours outlined at a press conference on Monday morning, it was clear that Greece had bowed to nearly all the demands of its creditor nations, especially Germany, and had taken on commitments that would be extremely difficult for the Greek government to fulfill without losing the trust and support of its electorate.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
A Greek friend on the AECM listserv mentioned, I suspect facetiously,  a few weeks back that since the then Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was an expert on game theory such that the "fatherland did not have a chance." His exact words were:

In the current situation, I think Greece’s problem is mainly what Bismarck said “three professors and the fatherland is lost”.

Perhaps Varoufakis resigned in advance of the latest rounds of bailout negotiations to salvage  his honor  as a game theorist in our Academy.

The real test now is whether the Greek government will enforce its new austerity terms over the coming years.

June 14, 2015 reply from Tom Selling

Hi, Apostolos:
Thanks for providing important context and perspective.  
 
I didn’t understand what you meant by the quote you attributed Bismarck, so I spent 5 minutes on a google search.  Permit me a technical addendum from this Wikipedia article about the composition of the German parliament in the 19th century:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Parliament 
 
The Frankfurt Assembly (German: Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, literally Frankfurt National Assembly) was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany,[1] elected on 1 May 1848 
 
Because of this composition [underrepresentation of the entrepreneurial class]  the National Assembly was later often dismissively dubbed the Professorenparlament ("Professors' parliament") and ridiculed with verses such as „Dreimal 100 Advokaten – Vaterland, du bist verraten; dreimal 100 Professoren – Vaterland, du bist verloren!“[5] ("Three times 100 lawyers – Fatherland, you are betrayed; three times 100 professors – Fatherland, you are doomed”.)
 
I think that you are saying that the Germans are adopting a posture that, in their eyes, may be theoretically sound, but will nonetheless fail.  Am I correct?  

 
Best,
Tom

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on June 29, 2015

The debt crisis in Greece approached a fateful climax as its lenders were ordered to stay closed for six days starting Monday and its central bank moved to impose capital controls to prevent money from flooding out of the country, the WSJ reports. The moves put Greece closer than it ever has been to an exit from the euro and pushes the common currency itself into uncharted waters ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB11064341213388534269604581075703841095260?mod=djemCFO_h

The decision came after the European Central Bank—meeting in an emergency session Sunday—opted not to expand a lifeline of emergency funds that has been sustaining Greek banks while nervous depositors pulled their money out. In response, European stocks slumped Monday and the euro fell. Greece’s stock market will be closed for as long as banks are not open to the public, the country’s Capital Markets Commission said. On Athens’s rainy streets late Sunday, many ATMs already had been emptied.

Jensen Comment
The ball now seems to be in the court of the Greek electorate that purportedly is badly divided in terms of whether to accept an austerity deal from the EU or to enter into uncharted chaos of withdrawing from the Eurozone. There are no winners for the short-term future, and there's probably not a lot to be gained from attributing blame as to how Greece  got to this cliff edge.

Not enough voters in the USA are concerned that over $100 trillion in unfunded entitlements  (read that Medicare, Medicaid, and possibly free college) and uncontrollable fraud may lead us to a similar cliff. It was sad last night on CBS Sixty Minutes to learn from IRS officials that it may be impossible to stop the hemorrhage of tens of billions of dollars from ID theft phony tax returns. That fraud may alone may soon grow to hundreds of billions of dollars, much of which is going to Russia, China, etc. See the Tax Refund Scam at
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-tax-refund-scam/

Another crisis in Greece is that Greece, along with Italy, is burdened with tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants from African shores. The EU has a new policy for relocating many of these arrivals to other parts of Europe, but the new policy has no mechanism of enforcement unless other European nations put out the welcome mat --- dream on.  Will the USA put out the welcome mat for undocumented immigrants in Italy and Greece? Many of them are probably already close to the Rio Grande, but thousands are still begging for help in Greece and Italy. The world seems to be at a social and economic brink at a time when global leadership is at an all-time low amidst old tribal and religious strife all over the world. The answer in Russia and North Korea and places unknown is to build a bigger WMD arsenal. Remember the Kingston Trio lyric:  "Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away." ---

The Merry Minuet (slightly altered)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp6dsKleGpU

They're rioting in Africa.
The Russians build humungous tanks and kill more Ukrains. There's tornados in the Midwest and Texas California needs rains.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. Kenyans hate Somolians. Nigerians hate Bokos.
Americans hate ISIS. Greeks hate the Deutsch. And I don't like anybody very moich!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day
someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.
They're raining rockets on Israel. We need nukes in  Iran. What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man


"Los Angeles’ Garment Industry Frets Over (minimum wage) Pay Hike Some say a $15 minimum wage, slated by 2020, will drive them out," by Eric Morath and Alejandro Lazo, The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/los-angeles-garment-industry-frets-over-pay-hike-1436986903?mod=djemCFO_h

Jensen Comment
One possible cost accounting student assignment is to compare relocation costs and revised operating costs of various types of companies such as garment manufacturing versus food processing versus food retailing versus furniture assembly. A complicating factor is the underground cash economy. For example, in garment manufacturing its somewhat common to hire home workers to sew on the basis of completed job lots rather than hourly wages.


Another Blow to Illinois
Mitsubishi is quitting car production in the US ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-mitsubishi-plans-to-quit-us-car-production-nikkei-2015-7#ixzz3goZRtdcW


. . .  the fastest way to a clean energy future is to close down local sources of power and import it from other regions. California gets more than half its energy from neighboring Arizona, Nevada and Washington State, the largest import energy bill in the nation. Both New York and New England are looking to Quebec hydro for future clean power.
"Vermont Struggles With Renewables," by William Tucker, Real Clear Energy, July 23, 2015 ---
http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2015/07/23/vermont_struggles_with_renewables_108616.html

When the Green Mountain power company, Vermont’s largest utility, announced earlier this year it will be buying nuclear power from New Hampshire’s Seabrook reactor, many environmentalists felt betrayed (after managing to shut down Vermont's nuclear plant).

. . .

Other attempts to go green have met with indifferent success. Several proposals to put windmills atop the Green Mountains – the obvious place for them – have been shouted down or stalled by local objections. An early attempt to put a new wood-burning plant right across the Massachusetts border was also quickly defeated – it would create air pollution. The project was also dampened by a Massachusetts study which concluded that burning trees for energy would soon exhaust the state’s forest resources.

Burlington claims to be the first city in the country to have achieved 100 percent renewable status, although these claims are open to debate. The city’s main source of electricity is the Joseph C. McNeil Generating Station, which was recently converted from coal to wood. The Burlington Electric Department (BED) claims that 75 percent of the wood comes from within 60 miles. This is considered renewable in that trees regrow, although the amount of carbon thrown into the atmosphere has been shown to exceed that of coal. Also, once they are harvested, trees regrow whether they are burned as fuel or not. Another clean source is the recently purchased Winooski Hydroelectric Dam, a small hydro project developed by environmental pioneer John Warshow, who died last month. The dam produces 7.4 megawatts.

Ironically, while some environmentalists have been developing small dams, others have been campaigning to tear down small dams around the state. The Newport 11 dam was recently removed from the Clyde River and other small dams are under fire. The strategy resembles one pursued for years by the Sierra Club, which favors small dams globally but campaigns to tear them down locally. Warshow developed three other small dams around the state.

. . .

In the interim, Vermont is finding - like California and Germany before it – that the fastest way to a clean energy future is to close down local sources of power and import it from other regions. California gets more than half its energy from neighboring Arizona, Nevada and Washington State, the largest import energy bill in the nation. Both New York and New England are looking to Quebec hydro for future clean power.

Continued in article

 


"After Five Years, Dodd-Frank Is a Failure:  The law has crushed small banks, restricted access to credit, and planted the seeds of financial instability," by Jeb Hensarling, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-five-years-dodd-frank-is-a-failure-1437342607?tesla=y

Tuesday will mark five years since President Obama’s signing of the Dodd-Frank law, the most sweeping rewrite of the country’s financial laws since the New Deal. Mr. Obama told the country that the legislation would “lift our economy.” The statute itself declared that it would “end too big to fail” and “promote financial stability.”

None of that has come to pass. Too-big-to-fail institutions have not disappeared. Big banks are bigger, small banks are fewer, and the financial system is less stable. Meanwhile, the economy remains in the doldrums.

Dodd-Frank was based on the premise that the financial crisis was the result of deregulation. Yet George Mason University’s Mercatus Center reports that regulatory restrictions on financial services grew every year between 1999-2008. It wasn’t deregulation that caused the crisis, it was dumb regulation.

Among the dumbest were Washington’s affordable-housing mandates, beginning in 1977, that led to a loosening of underwriting standards and put people into homes they couldn’t afford. The Federal Reserve played its part in the 2008 financial crisis by keeping interest rates too low for too long, inflating the housing bubble. Washington not only failed to prevent the crisis, it led us into it.

Dodd-Frank was supposedly aimed at Wall Street, but it hit Main Street hard. Community financial institutions, which make the bulk of small business loans, are overwhelmed by the law’s complexity. Government figures indicate that the country is losing on average one community bank or credit union a day.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm


 

 




Finding and Using Health Statistics --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics and databases ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics


Cadillac Medical  Insurance Plan --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_insurance_plan

"St. Paul, MN schools may adjust health plans to avoid 'Cadillac tax'," By Josh Verges, TwinCities.com, July 22, 2015 ---
http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_28522319/st-paul-schools-may-adjust-health-plans-avoid

St. Paul Public Schools employees are likely to see their health benefits curtailed as the school district looks to avoid financial penalties set to begin in 2018.

The Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac Tax" provision will charge employers an excise tax on high-cost plans -- 40 percent on every dollar over $10,200 on individual and $27,500 on family plans.

Jeni Simon, a consultant with Aon Hewitt, told school board members Tuesday that companies already are redesigning their health plans in order to avoid paying the tax. A survey found 92 percent of U.S. employers expect their health plans to change by 2018, and 47 percent said they'll be significantly different.

"This could be crippling financially for an organization," Simon said.

The school district has generous health plans that haven't changed in 10 years, Simon said. Among the options for getting under the tax cap are eliminating spousal coverage or flexible savings accounts, or charging higher co-pays or deductibles.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm


"This Is How Easy It Is to Scam Obamacare:  Federal auditors duped healthcare.gov 11 out of 12 times," by John Tozzi, Bloomberg, July 16, 2015 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-16/this-is-how-easy-it-is-to-scam-obamacare?cmpid=BBD071615_BIZ

When healthcare.gov opened in late 2013, it was so crippled by technical problems that critics questioned whether people would be able to sign up for coverage. Now, it may actually be too easy to enroll.

That’s according to a new government audit, presented in testimony from the Government Accountability Office, delivered at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday. When federal auditors tried to apply for insurance coverage and tax credit subsidies using fictitious applicants, they succeeded 11 out of 12 times. Here are some highlights from the GAO’s undercover investigation:

Fake applicants got through on the phone

The auditors couldn’t get coverage for fake applicants just by going online, because the website couldn’t verify their identities. But investigators successfully completed the fake applications on the phone and got coverage for almost all of them. In the one enrollment that didn’t succeed, the applicant declined to give a Social Security Number, though other cases that had missing or invalid SSNs were approved.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Millions of workers in the underground cash economy not only do not pay in income taxes many of them most likely are also getting 100% subsidies for health insurance or are fraudulently on Medicaid. Literally all big government programs are big piñatas for fraudsters.


The Transition from Government Bureaucrat to Highly-Paid Industry Lobbyist is So Typical
"Former Head of Medicare to Head Lobbying Arm of Health Insurance Companies
, by Robert Pear, New York Times, July  15, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/ex-medicare-chief-marilyn-tavenner-top-lobbyist.html

Marilyn B. Tavenner, the former Obama administration official in charge of the rollout of HealthCare.gov, was chosen on Wednesday to be the top lobbyist for the nation’s health insurance industry.

Ms. Tavenner, who stepped down from her federal job in February, will become president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group whose members include Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and many Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies.

As the new voice for insurers, Ms. Tavenner will lead the industry in a time of tumultuous changes and challenges, including delicate negotiations with Congress over the future of the Affordable Care Act.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
What do you think the odds are that Ms. Tavernner would have instead become a taxpayer lobbyist? In mathematics we would say epsilon.

Her job is now to lobby for even higher soaring rate increases for big medical insurance companies.

"The New York Times notices that ObamaCare is causing insurance rates to soar," by Robert Laurie, Canada Free Press, July 6, 2015 ---
http://canadafreepress.com/article/73517

There have been plenty of stories about the ways in which ObamaCare is driving up healthcare costs. All across the country, we’ve seen double digit insurance rate hikes and soaring premiums. It’s nothing new, and conservatives have been warning that this would be the case since long before the unpopular law was rammed down America’s throat.

However, acknowledgement of ObamaCare’s failure usually comes from either right-leaning news sources, or insurance industry watchdogs.  We don’t often get it from the far-left paper of record, The New York Times:

Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.

  Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.

Huh.  That’s weird. I thought ObamaCare was supposed to lower rates across the board.  Didn’t the President promise that the average household would see their premiums decline by something on the order of $2500.00? Certainly the New York Times must be shocked to discover that these claims were bald-faced lies, and that conservatives were right all along.

Continued in article

"How the Affordable Care Act Is Reducing Competition Five big insurers seem set to become three, as Aetna buys Humana and Anthem eyes Cigna. Thanks, ObamaCare," by Scott Gottlieb, The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-affordable-care-act-is-reducing-competition-1436136236?tesla=y

The urge to merge is sweeping managed health care. Aetna announced Friday a $37 billion deal to acquire Humana. Anthem and Cigna are in merger talks and could be next. The national for-profit insurers are on an anxious mission to consolidate. These combinations will sharply reduce competition and consumer choice, as five big insurers shrink, probably, to three.

This trend is a direct consequence of ObamaCare, reflecting the naïveté of its architects and the fulfillment of their myopic vision. For Aetna, the deal is aimed at expanding its footprint in Medicare Advantage, a business that has become more financially attractive now that ObamaCare caps profits in the individual and group insurance markets.

. . .

But now almost every co-op is financially underwater, on the hook for federal loans that amount to more than 100% of the total value of their capital and surplus. Some—like Arizona’s Meritus Mutual Health Partners—are nearing 1,000%, according to rating agency A.M. Best.

All but five co-ops had negative cash flow heading into the end of last year, according to Standard & Poor’s, and nine had medical-loss ratios above 100%, including Iowa’s CoOportunity Health, which has declared bankruptcy. During the last half of 2014 the Health and Human Services Department had to bail out six co-ops with $356 million in emergency funding.

Continued in article

And Eric Holder is back defending Wall Street's biggest banks ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-08/eric-holder-s-job-prospects-were-too-big-to-fail

Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm


More People Have No Medical Insurance Than Was Estimated by the CBO
"Obamacare Fine Paid by 6.6 Million Taxpayers," by Anna Edney, Bloomberg, July 15, 2015 ---
 

About 6.6 million U.S. taxpayers paid a penalty imposed for the first time this year for not having health insurance, about 10 percent more than the Obama administration had estimated -- though a portion didn’t need to.

The penalty of as much as 1 percent of income was implemented under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and was meant to encourage people to sign up for health insurance. The Treasury Department had said in January that as many as 6 million taxpayers would pay the fine.

The average penalty was $190, the National Taxpayer Advocate, the in-house ombudsman of the Internal Revenue Service, said Wednesday in a report. About 300,000 taxpayers overpaid the penalty by a total of $35 million. Most should have been exempt for their low income, according to the agency.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Most of the uninsured are working people who elect to pay the fine rather than pay an ACA policy premium. Unemployed people usually are insured either because of a 100% ACA subsidy or eligibility for Medicaid. Students can be insured on the policy of a parent at a better price in most cases.


"Did Senators Commit Health Insurance Fraud? Did Senators and their staff pretend to be “small businesses” to get subsidies?" by Joe Schoffstall," The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-obamacare-1437171835?tesla=y

. . .

“The Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, required that members of Congress and their staff enroll in individual plans through the healthcare exchanges created by the law,” the group said in a press release. “As open enrollment approached in 2014, members and staff realized that by enrolling as individuals, they would no longer receive generous taxpayer-funded contributions to help pay their insurance premiums as they had for decades under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. They would instead only qualify for subsidies if their household income was less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, just like millions of other Americans that had to purchase insurance in the individual market.”

The group notes that senators worked with the White House and the Office of Personnel Management for guidance on how to enroll in the Small Business Health Options Program in order to skirt any obstacles.

On October 2, 2013, the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) used a federal regulation to deem Congress a small business despite its having more than 12,000 employees and dependents.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Surely you don't believe our beloved senators could commit fraud.




 

Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine

The Atlantic: Health: Family --- http://www.theatlantic.com/health/category/family/

Bob Jensen's Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm 

Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:

Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm

Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Enron --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Rotten to the Core --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

American History of Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm

Bob Jensen's fraud conclusions ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance 

 

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

·     With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier

·     With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams

·     With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR

·     With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave  --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Bob Jensen's threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/