Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 28, 2011


MoTown, baby!
Posted by at

4 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/06/22/morning-bell-the-truth-about-tax-cuts/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

All you are likely to hear about low tax rates from liberals and their echo chamber in the media is that they don’t work; that they fail to gin up economic or job growth.

Don’t believe it.

The tax cuts enacted by the U.S. Congress in 2003 were an important cause of an economic expansion that roared for some 50 months and created 8.1 million jobs.

The opposite philosophy - a stimulus that has crowded out private investment, plus an enormous health bill and a nightmarish financial regulatory package that are killing job creation - has only delayed recovery and left us with 9.1% unemployment.

President Bush signed the first wave of tax cuts in 2001, cutting rates and providing tax relief for families by, for example, doubling of the child tax credit to $1,000.

* YOU FOLKS KNOW MY VIEWS ON TAXES - THE WHOLE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE REFORMED. BEYOND THAT THOUGH THE FACT IS THAT EVEN THOUGH THE TIMING WASN'T PLANNED, THE FACT THAT THE 2001 TAX CUTS WERE IN PLACE WAS A MAJOR REASON WHY THE ECONOMY DIDN'T GO INTO AN IMMEDIATE TAILSPIN AFTER 9/11.

At Congress’ insistence, the tax relief was initially phased in over many years, so the economy continued to lose jobs. In 2003, realizing its error, Congress made the earlier tax relief effective immediately. Congress also lowered tax rates on capital gains and dividends to encourage business investment, which had been lagging. It was the then that the economy turned around.

Within months of enactment, job growth shot up, eventually creating 8.1 million jobs through 2007.

Tax revenues also increased after the Bush tax cuts, due to economic growth. In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced. Rather than expand by 36% as the Congressional Budget Office projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion. The CBO incorrectly calculated that the post-March 2003 tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion. Revenues for 2006 came in $47 billion above the pre-tax cut baseline.

Here’s what else happened after the 2003 tax cuts lowered the rates on income, capital gains and dividend taxes:

GDP grew at an annual rate of just 1.7% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the six quarters following the tax cuts, the growth rate was 4.1%.

The S&P 500 dropped 18% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts but increased by 32% over the next six quarters.

The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.

* NOW... FOLKS... A LARGE PART OF THIS "GROWTH" WAS BUILT UPON A HOUSE OF CARDS FINANCED BY ARTIFICIALLY LOW INTEREST RATES. THAT SAID, THE POINT IS THAT DYNAMIC ANALYSIS (AS OPPOSED TO STATIC ANALYSIS) IS THE PROPER WAY TO... er... ANALYZE. (*SMILE*) (*SHRUG*)

The famous Clinton economic boom began when Congress passed legislation cutting spending and cutting the capital gains tax rate.

* AND AGAIN... THAT ENDED IN A BURST ECONOMIC BUBBLE. (SEE, FOLKS... HERE'S WHY YOU READ NEWSBITES: I WON'T LEAVE STUFF OUT OR MASSAGE THE FACTS TO MAKE A POINT. I CALL 'EM AS I SEE 'EM.)

In late 2007 the economy began to cool. By 2008, it entered a recession. The housing bubble burst, precipitating a financial crisis. But after 50 months of unimpeded growth, it is ludicrous to insist that the tax cuts caused the recession, let alone the global financial meltdown. Even after the Fannie and Freddie Mac-induced bust, there were still one million net jobs created during the Bush years.

June 28, 2011 at 10:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13935876

The governor of Afghanistan's central bank, Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, has resigned and fled the country, saying his life is in danger for investigating fraud.

* OH, YEAH, FOLKS... DEFINITELY THE GOVERNMENT WE WANNA BE THROWING BILLIONS AT!

The embezzlement at Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's largest private bank, almost led to its collapse last year after it was discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars had gone missing. The bank handles up to 80% of the government payroll, including salaries for policemen and teachers.

"My life was completely in danger and this was particularly true after I spoke to the parliament and exposed some people who are responsible for the crisis of Kabul Bank," Mr Fitrat said on Monday.

An Afghan government spokesman said the resignation amounted to treason.

Waheed Omar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, also added that Mr Fitrat was himself under investigation.

* HMM... YET HE FLED TO AMERICA... NOT IRAN... NOT PAKISTAN... NOT RUSSIA... NOT CHINA...

* YOU'D THINK THAT IF FITRAT WERE THE CROOK - INSTEAD OF SAY KARZAI - THE U.S. WOULD BE THE VERY LAST PLACE IN THE WORLD HE'D WANT TO BE.

In April, Mr Fitrat publicly named in parliament high-profile figures who were allegedly involved in the near collapse of the bank.

Relatives of President Karzai, including his brother, Mahmoud Karzai, were among those named in connection with the scandal. Mr Fitrat also implicated the brother of Vice-President Qasim Fahim.

Fitrat said he left the country after he received information that his life was in danger from "credible sources".

June 28, 2011 at 4:55 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270484/our-sharia-compliant-afghan-war-andrew-c-mccarthy

Turns out that the U.S. government has embraced a core tenet of sharia...

* BY "U.S. GOVERNMENT" I ASSUME WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PRESENTLY HEADED BY... BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA...?

Patrick Poole reported at Pajamas Media on Tuesday that [Obama's] Secretary of the Army has just granted “conscientious objector” status to Pfc. Nasser Abdo, a Muslim American soldier who refused to deploy to Afghanistan.

* GUESS WHY? NO... SERIOUSLY... GUESS WHY... (IN ANY CASE, READ ON...)

Heeding the admonitions of CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood operatives, the Pentagon accepts the claim that sharia forbids Muslims from assisting infidels in a war against Muslim forces in an Islamic land.

(*BLOOD SHOOTING OUT OF MY EYES, EARS, NOSE, AND MOUTH*)

* HERE... SEE FOR YOURSELVES: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/shock-dept-of-defense-vindicates-fort-hood-killer/

June 28, 2011 at 9:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304447804576412173100549538.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

A Food and Drug Administration appeals panel on the use of Avastin for end-stage breast cancer votes today, and FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg will make a final ruling soon. In the meantime, let's underline what an extraordinary moment this is.

Avastin is a biologic that chokes off the flow of blood to tumors, and the FDA provisionally approved it for breast cancer in 2008.

Last year [2010], the agency decided that the drug did not offer terminally ill women "sufficient benefit."

* HMM... NOW WHAT'S DIFFERENT ABOUT 2010 FROM 2008...??? OH... YEAH... OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT LAST YEAR; OBAMA WAS THE ULTIMATE "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF" OF THE FDA LAST YEAR.

The agency has never withdrawn a treatment option for such a serious disease.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

* "...NEVER..."

* NEVER... NEVER... NEVER...

In an unprecedented move, Avastin's maker, Genentech, has appealed to the FDA leadership above the drugs division. Thus this week's trial, with FDA bureaucrats as de facto prosecutors and Genentech scientists defending their medicine.

Genentech clearly has a self-interest in sticking up for a drug that generates $6 billion in annual revenue, about $1 billion of that from breast cancer. But no drug maker, ever, has formally and so publicly challenged the ukase of the FDA - an agency that can make or break companies and is known for punishing those who challenge it.

* LET'S REPEAT THAT...

* "...EVER..."

* EVER... EVER... EVER...

Avastin offers some terminally ill women months or years of life. For others, it delays the onset of symptoms, improves their quality of life and gives their doctors another tool to better control disease. No treatment in late-stage oncology is perfect, but a good definition of insanity is denying all patients an option because it may only help some of them.

Genentech is merely asking that Avastin remain an alternative while it conducts further trials and new research. It is asking the FDA to let it build on its gains, rather than undoing them. Avastin is approved for other cancers such as those of the lung, kidney and brain, so it would still remain available "off label." Yet FDA decisions guide insurers and Medicare and would restrict Avastin's availability and its unrealized medical promise.

The future of cancer treatment is therapies targeted to subpopulations identified by individual molecular biomarkers. As the fields of genomics and systems biology advance, care will improve, but the war against cancer isn't the Falklands. It's the Somme and Verdun: Progress is slow, incremental and reversible. The FDA's anti-Avastin campaign is enforcing a culture of research and development that will discourage the innovation, investment and risk-taking that will be necessary to produce the next generation of cancer treatments.

More imminently, thousands of women may die more quickly and live with more pain because government regulators substitute their own opinions about clinical meaningfulness for those of oncologists and their patients.

June 28, 2011 at 9:55 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)