Elkhart Review

Support the Pipeline

Dick Morris at Dickmorris.com makes the case that the Keystone Pipeline project can still go forward, but it will take congressional action at this point. The president’s dog-ate-my-homework excuse for blocking the project is curious, at best, even to liberals, and it hurts our prospects for lower energy prices and REAL energy independence that doesn’t depend on tax-subsidized green energy projects.

Kiss of Death Dept.

Geithner Says Europe Will Succeed

Headline in the Wall Street Journal

When has this guy ever been right?

via Geithner Presses Europe for Solution – WSJ.com.

More fallout from Obamacare

This story from the Detroit Free Press (excerpted below) will be repeated many times as we approach the time when/if the health care law takes effect. In our own area, this has to be affecting the medical companies in Warsaw.

The plain fact is, the health care law will cost more and more jobs as time goes on, possibly including jobs lost in Elkhart General Hospital in response to “reform.” Obamacare is making life worse for Americans without improving healthcare for anyone.

Stryker, the Kalamazoo-based maker of artificial hips and knees, will cut 5% of its global workforce by the end of next year to reduce costs in the face of new fees on device makers required by the U.S. health care law.
The job cuts will reduce annual pretax operating costs by more than $100 million beginning in 2013, when the medical-device excise tax is scheduled to take effect, Stryker said Thursday in a statement. Stryker had more than 20,000 employees as of Dec. 31, according to Bloomberg News data.
via Stryker to cut 5% of workforce | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

If you’re ticked off at banks, this actually makes some sense

Occupy Wall Street has made little sense to us from its inception — Wall Street is, in our opinion, not nearly as culpable in the current economic downturn as are Fannie, Freddie, Chris and Barney. But where banks have done wrong (and there are some good arguments here), we applaud the “vote with your feet” method of voicing consumer displeasure. This from the AP:

A grassroots movement that sprang to life last month is urging bank customers to close their accounts in favor of credit unions by Saturday.
The spirit behind “Bank Transfer Day” caught fire with the Occupy Wall Street protests around the country and had more than 79,000 supporters on its Facebook page as of Friday. The movement has already helped beat back Bank of America’s plan to start charging a $5 debit card fee.
via News from The Associated Press.

What we find ironic, however, is that the leftist/Marxists of the OWS protests are getting actual traction from a purely free-market solution, i.e., if you don’t like it, don’t support it. No company wants to lose customers. If your bank displeases you, pull your account.

The Solyndra scandal should never have happened

Dick Morris reports on how the Solyndra scandal goes pretty much to the top, but here’s what we think is the ultimate point: Governement subsidies in the “green jobs” are morally and economically indefensible. Here’s Dick:

The Solyndra scandal is a gift that keeps on giving. It shows that not only was Obama’s stimulus package and baloney about green jobs a fraud but that it was also good old Chicago politics at work.
And the entire concept of the loan program is bogus. How can you make an energy company that is not viable work by lending it money? If the program can generate energy at competitive prices, why would it need federal aid? And, if it can’t, how would it ever be able to repay the federal loan?

via TOP OBAMA FUNDRAISER OK’ED SOLYNDRA LOAN at DickMorris.com.

We need a better bedtime story — Noonan in WSJ.

Peggy Noonan talks about failure of leadership — in both parties — but this astonishing excerpt from Ron Suskind’s Obama interview is what particularly grabbed me.

I return to Ron Suskind’s book, “Confidence Men.” As noted last week, Mr. Suskind has been criticized for getting quotes and facts wrong. But the White House hasn’t disputed his interview with Mr. Obama, who had some remarkable things to say.
It turns out he too is obsessed with The Narrative. Mr. Suskind asked him why his team had difficulty creating a policy to deal with unemployment. Mr. Obama said some of it was due to circumstances, some to the complexity of the problem. Then he added: “We didn’t have a clean story that we wanted to tell against which we would measure various actions.” Huh? It wasn’t “clean,” he explained, because “what was required to save the economy might not always match up with what would make for a good story.”
Throughout the interview the president seems preoccupied with “shaping a story for the American people.” He says: “The irony is, the reason I was in this office is because I told a story to the American people.” But, he confesses, “that narrative thread we just lost” in his first years.
via Once Upon a Time in America – WSJ.com.

Ten Worst Beatles Songs

I’m as big a Beatles fan as anyone, but I recently read a couple articles that make the statement: enough already. The Beatles have been canonized aplenty, and even though I never stopped loving them, I recognize that maybe there were some other pop/rock bands that made some pretty good tunes. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has appeared at the top of lists of the best albums “of all time,” pretty much since it first appeared in 1967. But is it? Really? Depends on who you talk to. I actually wasn’t crazy about the album when I first purchased it, but it grew on me. Today, the Beach Boys’ magnum opus Pet Sounds seems to have highest honors, and in many ways, it deserves it.

The point is, there isn’t any “greatest of all time” anything. In the spirit of fairness, here’s a list of what I would vote as the worst songs the Beatles ever recorded — commenters , you can add your own.

Blue Jay Way – Absolute worst thing they ever recorded — boring, snoring drivel.
Dear Prudence – From the White Album — just boring and droning.
Don’t Let Me Down – I don’t know why I don’t like this — it’s boring, for sure, and not nearly as badly written as some others, but it seems like a throwaway tune to me.
Love Me Do – No tune, with harmonica backing.
Good Night – Ringo sings this, which is not always a good thing, but that’s not the main problem. It’s a syrupy, draggy amorphous blob, with too much orchestra behind it.
The Long and Winding Road — same problem as Good Night. Phil Spector’s orchestration ruined an ok song, but there’s just no energy in this one.
Long, Long, Long — a Harrison song off the White Album. Weak whiny vocal, and a melody that just drifts around.
Dizzy Miss Lizzy — nice energy but boring. It’s a Little R
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Yer Blues
Taxman

Have Europe’s wealthy jumped the shark?

Tax Me More, Europe’s Wealthy Say – NYTimes.com. First it’s Warren Buffett, now this. For most of these folks (check the article), they have the option of paying more if they really want to, so why don’t they? Hitting the super-rich with more taxes plays well at cocktail parties and down at the union hall, but it has no real benefit in terms of easing government deficits long term. That’s because even if we flat-out confiscated all the money the glitterati have, it wouldn’t go that far.

Real fiscal reform that’s long lasting is what’s needed, and it simply means the government stops spending and stops casting smaller increases as “cuts” in the budget.

This article is, in our opinion, a semi-fabrication in service of a political agenda, and it’s a drumbeat the NY Times has been playing for a while now . It’s goofy on its face — if the super rich want to be taxed more, they can simply send the IRS more money. But they don’t. So how serious can this be?

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