Saturday, September 8, 2012
Illegal monkey living on Frosted Flakes bites woman.
Gotta be the headline of the day, although it should be "undocumented" monkey.
The young are leaving the labor force, the old are flocking to it
At the Washington ComPost: But the participation rate for the 65+ cohort has jumped during the
recession, hitting a 30-year high as more Americans have either decided
to postpone retirement or have come out of retirement to work as their
savings have been hit by the downturn
College Beauty Contest In China Has Some Very Unique, Nipple-Specific Requirements
Among the requirements:
1. The space between the eyes and mouth should be 36 percent of the face’s total length.
2. The height of the individual should be 7.1 times the height of her head.
And the one that really has people talking:
3. The distance between the two nipples should be at least 20 centimeters.
1. The space between the eyes and mouth should be 36 percent of the face’s total length.
2. The height of the individual should be 7.1 times the height of her head.
And the one that really has people talking:
3. The distance between the two nipples should be at least 20 centimeters.
In the days before x-rays, a nail in the skull was a popular homicide technique
The Method of the Nail
Apparently the 'method of the nail' used to be quite a popular homicide technique, because in the days before x-rays it was hard to tell that someone had a nail in their head. The victim's hair might hide the wound, so people, not seeing any obvious sign of injury or foul play, would often assume death occurred from natural causes.
Apparently the 'method of the nail' used to be quite a popular homicide technique, because in the days before x-rays it was hard to tell that someone had a nail in their head. The victim's hair might hide the wound, so people, not seeing any obvious sign of injury or foul play, would often assume death occurred from natural causes.
Mark Steyn: A Nation of Sandra Flukes
So this is America’s best and brightest — or, at any rate, most
expensively credentialed. Sandra Fluke has been blessed with a
quarter-million dollars of elite education, and, on the evidence of
Wednesday night, is entirely incapable of making a coherent argument.
She has enjoyed the leisurely decade-long varsity once reserved for the minor sons of Mitteleuropean grand dukes, and she has concluded that the most urgent need facing the Brokest Nation in History is for someone else to pay for the contraception of 30-year-old children.
The tragedy for America is that Sandra Fluke is all too typical.
She has enjoyed the leisurely decade-long varsity once reserved for the minor sons of Mitteleuropean grand dukes, and she has concluded that the most urgent need facing the Brokest Nation in History is for someone else to pay for the contraception of 30-year-old children.
The tragedy for America is that Sandra Fluke is all too typical.
Which President Would Win in a Hunger Games-Style Brawl? (And it mentions ME!)
At PJM, an article with discussion and links to a way of thinking about presidents that your kids will find fascinating. And there's this:
The Transom has an interesting links section, a slightly more serious version of Debby Witts’s Odd Links at The Corner.
And it was linked via Instapundit!
Here's the post on which the above article is based:
In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?
The Transom has an interesting links section, a slightly more serious version of Debby Witts’s Odd Links at The Corner.
And it was linked via Instapundit!
Here's the post on which the above article is based:
In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?
Friday, September 7, 2012
White House misses deadline for report on 'fiscal cliff' budget cuts
Under the terms of the Sequestration Transparency Act signed in
August, President Obama was to tell Congress by Friday how the administration plans to implement the $109 billion in automatic cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act.
DNC and Granholm agree: Disabled kids’ Medicaid money is for Democratic candidates
At The Examiner: The SEIU is trying to amend the Michigan state constitution
to protect a gift from former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., who
helped the SEIU unionize in-home health care workers by deciding that
the recipients of Medicaid funding count as public employees.
The public employee tag even applies to parents who accept Medicaid funding in order to help support their kids.
“We’re not even home health care workers. We’re just parents taking care of our kids,” as Robert Haynes, a retired police officer, put it to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Haynes and his wife lose money every month to the SEIU, which managed to incorporate them into a union without their realizing it, because Granholm decided to treat Medicaid recipients as public employees. Accordingly, the state government deducts money from their Medicaid check every month and sends it to the SEIU.
via Newsalert.
The public employee tag even applies to parents who accept Medicaid funding in order to help support their kids.
“We’re not even home health care workers. We’re just parents taking care of our kids,” as Robert Haynes, a retired police officer, put it to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Haynes and his wife lose money every month to the SEIU, which managed to incorporate them into a union without their realizing it, because Granholm decided to treat Medicaid recipients as public employees. Accordingly, the state government deducts money from their Medicaid check every month and sends it to the SEIU.
via Newsalert.
Are Chinese Banks Hiding “The Mother of All Debt Bombs?”
Read the whole thing at The Diplomat: Flooding the economy with trillions of yuan in new loans did accomplish
the principal objective of the Chinese government — maintaining high
economic growth in the midst of a global recession. While Beijing
earned plaudits around the world for its decisiveness and economic
success, excessive loose credit was fueling a property bubble,
funding the profligacy of state-owned enterprises, and underwriting
ill-conceived infrastructure investments by local governments.
via Instapundit.
via Instapundit.
And now, a dick in a box from the 1800s
via io9: Decades before Saturday Night Live immortalized genitalia ensconced in storage containers using the power of song, rascals of the Victorian era had long perfected this art. In 2008, Christie's auctioned off "a spring-loaded erotic carved wood novelty box, perhaps 19th century, 8 in. (20 cm.) long" for $1,214. Is this a bargain? That answer depends on your for propensity for knicker-twisting japes that would knock the starch out a Whig. (If anyone can dredge up a historical memoir detailing the life of a nineteenth-century dildo artisan, we will forever be in your debt.)
Semi-Related and Not Safe For Work: The low-budget carnal thrills of Japanese sex museums. (They're even hotter when they're abandoned!)
Biden, Obamas tell health care tall tales at convention
“Barack had to sit at the end of his mom’s hospital bed and watch her
fight cancer and insurance companies at the same time,” Biden said.
The first lady added to the story, observing from the podium that “watching your mother die of something that could have been prevented — that’s a tough thing to deal with.”
“When my mother got cancer,” the president echoed during a video played inside the Time Warner Cable Arena before his entrance, ”she wasn’t a wealthy woman and it pretty much drained all her resources.”
But in 2004, the president told the Chicago Sun-Times that he wasn’t present during his mother’s final days at all.
The story Democratic convention-goers heard in Charlotte, N.C., however, was not intended as a tragic remembrance, but to convey the tragedy of suffering in a hospital without health insurance.
This narrative, too, is contradicted by history: Stanley Ann Dunham, the president’s late mother, did have health insurance to cover her uterine and ovarian cancer, through her job with Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Md.
“Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment,” according to Dunham’s biographer, New York Times journalist Janny Scott.
“Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly."
The first lady added to the story, observing from the podium that “watching your mother die of something that could have been prevented — that’s a tough thing to deal with.”
“When my mother got cancer,” the president echoed during a video played inside the Time Warner Cable Arena before his entrance, ”she wasn’t a wealthy woman and it pretty much drained all her resources.”
But in 2004, the president told the Chicago Sun-Times that he wasn’t present during his mother’s final days at all.
The story Democratic convention-goers heard in Charlotte, N.C., however, was not intended as a tragic remembrance, but to convey the tragedy of suffering in a hospital without health insurance.
This narrative, too, is contradicted by history: Stanley Ann Dunham, the president’s late mother, did have health insurance to cover her uterine and ovarian cancer, through her job with Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Md.
“Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment,” according to Dunham’s biographer, New York Times journalist Janny Scott.
“Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly."
Unemployment Drops to 5.1 Percent— For Government Workers; Lowest Among All Industries
“The private sector is doing fine,” said Obama. “Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government,
oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not
getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal
government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the
federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.”
DNC Attendees: Profits Should Be Banned
Posing as an anti-business crusader, Peter Schiff found a number of DNC
delegates and attendees who support explicitly outlawing profitability.
More at Freedom Works.
Govt warns of 'zombie apocalypse'
Emergency planners were encouraged to use the threat of zombies — the
flesh-hungry, walking dead — to encourage citizens to prepare for
disasters.
Now you can make watermelons explode with your brain
Thanks to an EEG headset and a compressed air cannon, destroying things with your brain just got a whole lot easier.
Friday links
A History of New York in 50 Objects.
Poorly translated Indian James Bond comics.
Wound Man, from a European surgical text circa 1400.
Mother shaves numbers into quadruplets hair so teachers can tell them apart.
Holy crap - this Supercut of Apocalypses on Film is awesome.
Poorly translated Indian James Bond comics.
Wound Man, from a European surgical text circa 1400.
Mother shaves numbers into quadruplets hair so teachers can tell them apart.
Holy crap - this Supercut of Apocalypses on Film is awesome.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Axelrod and the DOJ bully Gallup
Gallup was not only annoying the White House with its numbers in the
spring showing Mitt Romney ahead in the presidential race, it was also
running employment data without the Obama Labor Department's convoluted
seasonal adjustments.
Two weeks ago, along comes the Justice Department joining on a 2009 lawsuit against Gallup charging that the pollster overcharged the State Department, the U.S. Mint and other branches of the federal government.
Two weeks ago, along comes the Justice Department joining on a 2009 lawsuit against Gallup charging that the pollster overcharged the State Department, the U.S. Mint and other branches of the federal government.
Jonah Goldberg: The bogusness of "We're all in it together!"
What is it about liberals that makes them think all that stands between them and total Road Warrior–style anarchy is a bloated, inefficient, government in Washington?
Surprise! Steelworker Featured at DNC Didn’t Work for Bain - he was a union organizer
David Foster was never an employee of GST Steel’s Kansas City plant. He was employed by the United Steelworkers of America as their regional union director.
Via JWF.
Via JWF.
Chance of rain for Obama's speech this evening: Zero
There is a 30% chance earlier in the day. At 10pm, when the Great One was scheduled to ascend the stage, there is no chance of rain then or the rest of the night.
Thursday links
Dali's drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy
Dress made from 3,000 cow and yak nipples
The history and science of meringue
Slow Motion Video of Water Balloons Falling and Bouncing
17 Euphemisms for Sex From the 1800s
Gallery: Caves From Around The World
Dress made from 3,000 cow and yak nipples
The history and science of meringue
Slow Motion Video of Water Balloons Falling and Bouncing
17 Euphemisms for Sex From the 1800s
Gallery: Caves From Around The World
UK: shoot at 4 men breaking into your remote farmhouse, and guess who gets arrested?
'I'd have blown their heads off': Stepfather hits out at arrest of former model and her husband after intruder shooting at farmhouse.
Groups seek to overturn ruling allowing warrantless phone tracking
The Sixth Circuit majority ruled that the police had simply picked up
GPS signals that had been "emitted" by Skinner's phone and used it to
track his movements. But the civil liberties groups point out that this
is an over-simplified description of how the signals were obtained. Cell
phones do not routinely emit location data derived from GPS
measurements; they do so only when their phone companies remotely
activate a phone's tracking capabilities. This fact, the civil liberties
groups argue, should subject the tracking to a higher level of scrutiny.
The real-life chemistry teacher who showed Breaking Bad how to make meth.
Maven of Meth: The article also notes that the TV show "deliberately put in faulty
steps" so that home viewers can't actually create their own meth with
those techniques.
via GeekPress.
via GeekPress.
Dave Barry has 2 reports (so far) on the DNC convention
Taking Charlotte by storm as the DNC kicks off:
There is an innocent explanation for how I wound up on the floor of a bar with the governor of Montana. I was engaging in journalism.
The DJ has the Democrats spinning:
Bill was preceded by a parade of speakers whose remarks stressed the big recurring theme of this convention, which is that Barack Obama and the Democrats want to move America forward into the future by fixing this pesky inherited economy with a specific and practical plan to be revealed at a later date, so that every American — be it a woman, or a minority group, or a person of gender — will have an equal opportunity to have the American dream that Americans deserve here in America; as opposed to Mitt Romney and the Republicans, who want to move the nation backward in a giant Republican time machine to 1959, when wealthy fat-cat Republicans roamed the land with impunity, smoking cigars and beating the poor with golf clubs.
There is an innocent explanation for how I wound up on the floor of a bar with the governor of Montana. I was engaging in journalism.
The DJ has the Democrats spinning:
Bill was preceded by a parade of speakers whose remarks stressed the big recurring theme of this convention, which is that Barack Obama and the Democrats want to move America forward into the future by fixing this pesky inherited economy with a specific and practical plan to be revealed at a later date, so that every American — be it a woman, or a minority group, or a person of gender — will have an equal opportunity to have the American dream that Americans deserve here in America; as opposed to Mitt Romney and the Republicans, who want to move the nation backward in a giant Republican time machine to 1959, when wealthy fat-cat Republicans roamed the land with impunity, smoking cigars and beating the poor with golf clubs.
Private security contractors process 65% more passengers, three times better at finding contraband than TSA, cost less.
A vivid example of the stark difference between Big Government and free markets can be seen in–of all places–the Transportation Security
Administration.
Ben & Jerry's sues over X-rated 'Ben & Cherry's' DVDs
It identified some of the X-rated names similar to its own as "Boston Cream Thigh," `'New York Fat & Chunky" and "Peanut Butter D-Cup."
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Yvette Clarke, Congresswoman, Says Slavery Still Around In 1898 During 'Colbert Report' Interview
Video here.
During Stephen Colbert's "Better Know A District" segment, the comedian-cum-political commentator interviewed U.S. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who represents New York's 11th District. The results were both humorous and painfully awkward, as the Democratic politician took a hypothetical trip back in time with Colbert, only to claim slavery would still have existed in New York in 1898.
"If you could get in a time machine and go back to 1898, what would you say to those Brooklynites?" Colbert asked in the segment.
"I would say to them, 'Set me free,'" Clarke responded.
Gamely pressing on, Colbert inquired from what would the Congresswoman wish to be free from.
"Slavery," Clarke replied.
"Slavery. Really? I didn’t realize there was slavery in Brooklyn in 1898," Colbert said, perhaps in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to give the native Brooklyner a do-over.
"I’m pretty sure there was," Clarke responded.
"It sounds like a horrible part of the United States that kept slavery going until 1898," Colbert commented, struggling to keep a straight face.
"Who would be enslaving you in 1898 in New York?" Colbert pressed.
According to Clarke, none other than the Dutch.
Marginal Revolution is doing an online course in Development Economics
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, who blog at Marginal Revolution, are authors and economists at George Mason University's (my alma mater!) highly regarded Mercatus Center.
The first course from Marginal Revolution University is Development Economics. Development Economics will cover the sources of economic growth including geography, education, finance, and institutions.
More information here:
Introducing MRUniversity (spread the word)
and here:
MRU’s First Course: Development Economics
The first course from Marginal Revolution University is Development Economics. Development Economics will cover the sources of economic growth including geography, education, finance, and institutions.
More information here:
Introducing MRUniversity (spread the word)
and here:
MRU’s First Course: Development Economics
Great Moments in Government Regulation
At Carpe Diem: How
the California Department of Labor forces employers to force employees
to take an unpaid 30-minute lunch, even when employees want to work
through lunch and get paid and employers agree.
African Naked Mole Rat May Hold The Key To The Fountain Of Youth
Its longevity hints at some of the fundamental causes of ageing.
Key Solyndra figures get red carpet treatment at Democratic convention
Details, links, comments and a good infographic at HotAir.
1894 Autobiography by Jesus of Nazareth, as dictated to a spiritualist
Here's the "read online" version. This main page has other (perhaps clearer) reading options.
Via Weird Universe.
Via Weird Universe.
Why, exactly, is the Department of Justice regulating defibrillator choices?
This is rather chilling: With this new secretive rule-making approach, doctors are rendered powerless to adapt their practice medicine to its latest state of the art without later fear of retribution from the long arm of the law.
via Instapundit.
via Instapundit.
Secret account in mission-critical router opens power plants to tampering
At ArsTechnica: The line of mission-critical routers manufactured by Fremont,
California-based GarrettCom contains an undocumented account with a
default password that gives unprivileged users access to advanced
options and features.
Jonah Goldberg: The Question Nobody Wants to Answer
The problem is the idea that "the president is the project manager for a team of technicians who create economic prosperity."
They waved around charts and graphs “proving” they were right, like self-declared messiahs insisting they are to be followed because the prophecies they wrote themselves say so.
They waved around charts and graphs “proving” they were right, like self-declared messiahs insisting they are to be followed because the prophecies they wrote themselves say so.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Photo gallery: Inside the 1960 Democratic convention
The 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles was crammed with
the political superstars of the day — John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson —
as well as key staff members like Andrew Hatcher. Garry Winogrand took
pictures of all of them, but his primary interest was elsewhere. ‘‘He
photographed the life, the back corners, the audience,’’ says Leo
Rubinfien, a photographer who is curating a retrospective of Winogrand’s
work opening at SFMOMA next year. ‘‘The people watching the parade, not the parade — that was how he worked.’’
String Theory Song: A Catchy Rap to Explain the Physics of Superstrings
Monday, September 3, 2012
Moody's Downgrades European Union To Outlook Negative
ZeroHedge:
Moody's believes that it is reasonable to assume that the EU's creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states considering the significant linkages between member states and the EU, and the likelihood that the large Aaa-rated member states would likely not prioritize their commitment to backstop the EU debt obligations over servicing their own debt obligations.
At IMAO: President Obama Marks Labor Day
“This day, Labor Day, is a day of remembrance of the many jobs that once made this country so great.” said the President. “For without them, we
would not have had the peace and prosperity that we so enjoyed before.
It is important on a day like this, a national holiday, to remember
those many jobs that were saved or created, shovel ready or not so
ready, public union or private union, green or kind of green, and all
the rest that keep at least some of America working and paying taxes to
me.”
Denver Public Schools pilot program to push ‘social action,’ ‘social justice’
“Half of the kids in DPS aren’t even reading at grade level, yet the school district wants to make them into little social activists.”
Spengler: Groundhog Day Almost Over For Europe?
The Euro crisis has been going on forever, but the end of “forever” may be coming into sight.
1934 article: Perfected Television Now Ready for the Public
Distant places, noted stars of the stage, industry at work, drama, thrills, all living on a screen in your radio set!
Dems bring in crowds by the busload to fill stadium for Obama speech
College students from across North Carolina will arrive in Charlotte
by the busload. Same with members of predominantly black churches in
neighboring South Carolina.
Their goal: help fill a 74,000-seat outdoor stadium to capacity when President Obama accepts the Democratic nomination Thursday night.
Their goal: help fill a 74,000-seat outdoor stadium to capacity when President Obama accepts the Democratic nomination Thursday night.
Dems To Use Trick Photography to Fill Convention Hall?
It looks as though the Democrats intend to show an artificial sea of faces in order to make the convention hall look a whole lot fuller
than it might be.
Great moments in government regulation, 1,000s of low-level bank employees have been fired due to new FDIC rules
Professor Mark Perry at Carpe Diem links to this article at USA Today:
68-year-old Vietnam veteran is still too risky for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, in Des Moines, Iowa, which fired him on July 12 from his $29,795-a-year job as a customer service representative.
68-year-old Vietnam veteran is still too risky for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, in Des Moines, Iowa, which fired him on July 12 from his $29,795-a-year job as a customer service representative.
Egger's crime? Putting a cardboard cutout of a dime in a washing machine in nearby Carlisle, Iowa, on Feb. 2, 1963.
The tougher standards are meant to
weed out executives and mid-level bank employees guilty of transactional
crimes, like identity fraud or mortgage fraud, but they are being
applied across-the-board thanks to $1 million a day fines for
noncompliance.
Odd Jobs: Deer Urine Farmer
“Hey, it ain’t rocket science,” he laughs. “You put a buck in there.
When he starts riding the doe, and she lets him, they’re in heat. When
they’re done, you collect their urine. That’s our whole business model.”
Monday links
Really Terrible 19th-Century Beauty Tips. Also, Wildly Dangerous Home Remedies From 100 Years Ago.
Excellent job title: Shepherd of the Royal Anus.
85-Year-Old Vietnamese Man Hasn’t Cut His Hair in 70 Years.
When old school video games invade...
Embryonic animal photos: Womb with a View.
11 Incredible Navigable Aqueducts.
Daily Caller: Obama-led 1995 lawsuit forcing subprime lending
The suit asserted that Citibank had denied his clients mortgages, an outcome they believed was related to their race.
The case was settled out of court with Citibank agreeing to change its standards for lending in urban areas and to applicants who would not otherwise qualify.
Related articled in the same series at DC:
With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago’s African-Americans
Obama's African-American clients got coupons, not cash
Obama’s Citibank plaintiffs hit hard when housing bubble burst
'Crime in the area has increased. Some people don't want to bother with living in the neighborhood'
And watch this video on subprime mortgages.
The case was settled out of court with Citibank agreeing to change its standards for lending in urban areas and to applicants who would not otherwise qualify.
Related articled in the same series at DC:
With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago’s African-Americans
Obama's African-American clients got coupons, not cash
Obama’s Citibank plaintiffs hit hard when housing bubble burst
'Crime in the area has increased. Some people don't want to bother with living in the neighborhood'
And watch this video on subprime mortgages.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Deaf man hears music for the first time
Austin Chapman is profoundly deaf, but with new hi-tech hearing aids he
recently received, he was able to hear music for the first time in his 23-year life.
5 Stupid Government Interventions in Sports
Whatever you think of Armstrong's guilt or innocence — and
whether he's received due process or is getting screwed — hispredicament underscores how government-funded agencies intervene insports.
Why Nothing Is Shovel Ready Anymore: Worst Practices Seminar
American taxpayers will shell out many times what their counterparts in developed cities in Europe and Asia would pay. American transit projects give contractors relatively few incentives to
finish quickly or cheaply... But this is only a part of the price tag. Costs which
the article does not talk about are those created by the need to appease
the NIMBY and environmental lobbies.
8th Annual Pregnant Bikini Contest
Extremely pregnant women in bikinis. That's it. Video and more pictures here.
ICE Chief of Staff, Janet Napolitano's buddy, resigns after allegations of lewd behavior and sexual harassment of male employees
Before joining ICE in January 2009, Barr worked under Napolitano while
she was governor of Arizona, serving as director of legislative affairs.
Are 60% of Milwaukee’s black voters from 2008 missing?
Agenda flogging, not journalism - the numbers are ridiculous.
Toddler's karaoke tantrum ends in bloodbath
A Chinese toddler's refusal to give up the microphone during a family
karaoke evening started a quarrel that left two men hacked to death with a meat cleaver.
Look who parks their cash at Bain
“The scrutiny generated by a heated election year matters less than
the performance the portfolio generates to the fund,” California State
Teachers’ Retirement System spokesman Ricardo Duran said in the Aug. 12
Boston Globe. CalSTRS has pumped some $1.25 billion into Bain.
...the following funds have entrusted some $1.56 billion to Bain:
* Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund ($2.2 million)
* Indiana Public Retirement System ($39.3 million)
* Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System ($177.1 million)
* The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System ($19.5 million)
* Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ($117.5 million)
* Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada ($20.3 million)
* State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ($767.3 million)
* Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System ($231.5 million)
* Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island ($25 million)
* San Diego County Employees Retirement Association ($23.5 million)
* Teacher Retirement System of Texas ($122.5 million)
* Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System ($15 million)
via Instapundit.
...the following funds have entrusted some $1.56 billion to Bain:
* Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund ($2.2 million)
* Indiana Public Retirement System ($39.3 million)
* Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System ($177.1 million)
* The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System ($19.5 million)
* Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ($117.5 million)
* Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada ($20.3 million)
* State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ($767.3 million)
* Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System ($231.5 million)
* Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island ($25 million)
* San Diego County Employees Retirement Association ($23.5 million)
* Teacher Retirement System of Texas ($122.5 million)
* Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System ($15 million)
via Instapundit.
Question this election: can you have free market economics and a socialist welfare system at the same time?
The question lies at the heart of the economic
crisis from which the West seems unable to recover. It is so profoundly
threatening to the governing consensus of Britain and Europe as to be
virtually unutterable.
The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect.
The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect.