Wall Street Journal

An editorial from CNN Money the title of which pretty much explains it all.

Click anywhere below for the entire story.

A 30 second read, easy, small words.

Apologies for snide editorialization.

I'm starting to crack.

Raise taxes now -- the elders of the economy say so

Because, as we all know, all these guys really know what they're doing.

By Lex Haris, managing editor August 10, 2010:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- First it was Greenspan. Now one by one other elders of the economy are speaking out against deficits, and they're making the surprising argument for higher taxes.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was first and has taken the most extreme position, arguing that all of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 should be allowed to expire.

Greenspan, no fan of big government and an initial backer of the Bush tax cuts, allows that higher taxes now could lead to slower economic growth, but has said that chipping away at the deficit is more important.

Joining him -- at varying degrees -- are David Stockman, former budget director in the Reagan White House, and former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Paul O'Neill.

From The Wall Street Journal 8/10/2010, a letter from Michael P. Fleischer, president of Bogan Communications Inc of Ramsey, New Jersey.

Click anywhere below to link up Mr. Fleischer's letter.

Not a very tough read, recommended.

Why I'm Not Hiring

When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits.

By MICHAEL P. FLEISCHER

With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it's going to be later—much later. Here's why.

Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy).

Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings.

She's been with us for over 15 years. She's a high school graduate with some specialized training.

She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.

It's the arithmetic stupid. 

I like it a lot when the local guy steps up.

The letter below from Mark Maisonneuve of Eastpointe (formerly East Detroit, formerly Halfway) Michigan, was written in response to an op-ed written by Daniel B. Klein and published in the Wall Street Journal a week or so ago under the following title.

The original op-ed is recommended.

I liked the letter even better.  

Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

The Wall Street Journal's "Best Of The Web Today" is almost always my first stop of the day.

If I were in public life, I'd employ a fact checker to filter every thought in my head before it fell out of my mouth, purely out of fear from James Taranto et. al.

I believe we now have more than enough evidence with regards to Mr. Frank to place him in our "Pantheon of Liars" and forever refer to him as ... (drum roll please)

"Lying Barney Frank".

"We have, I think, an excessive degree of concern right now about homeownership and its role in the economy.

Obviously, speculation is never a good thing.

But those who argue that housing prices are now at the point of a bubble seem to me to be missing a very important point.

Unlike previous examples we have had, where substantial excessive inflation of prices later caused some problems, we are talking here about an entity--homeownership, homes -- where there is not the degree of leverage that we've seen elsewhere.

This is not the dot-com situation.

We had problems with people having invested in business plans for which there was no reality, people building fiberoptic cable for which there was no need.

Homes that are occupied may see an ebb and flow in the price at a certain percentage level, but you're not going to see the collapse that you see when people talk about a bubble.

And so those of us on our committee in particular will continue to push for homeownership."

Rep. Barney Frank, June 27, 2005

"One of my biggest differences with the Bush administration, and even with the Clinton administration, was that they overdid that.

I have always been critical of this effort to equate a decent home with homeownership.

I think we should have been doing more to provide rental housing.

My efforts have been to try and get affordable rental housing.

I was very much in disagreement with this push into home ownership, and I think the federal government should not be artificially doing that."

Rep. Barney Frank, "Power Lunch," CNBC, May 21, 2010

Who'da thunk it ....

Balls like that on a gay guy.