Bookworm Room

Tweet Today’s big story the new tax bill that Obama jetted off to Hawaii before signing, but that will soon (and inevitably) become the law of the land.  I don’t see any surprises.  I knew that we’d get hit hard and so we have. I gather that sequestration has now been averted, so that Obama [...]

13 Comments »

Tweet Paul Brandus decided he’d had enough of the innumerable lies about Obama floating through the blogosphere, so he did some research and came up with a post:  “Deconstructing the 5 most ridiculous myths about Barack Obama.“  Unfortunately for him, he forgot the cardinal rule of attacking your enemy:  Know your enemy.  Without that knowledge, [...]

4 Comments »

Tweet I was driving along in the car and, suddenly, the phrase “Roe v. Wade” popped into my head.  In 1973, the Supreme Court waded into what should have been a state-by-state legislative matter, and created the most vicious 39 year fight in America since the Civil War.  One side found the decision completely invalid, [...]

19 Comments »

Tweet The Supreme Court opinion on ObamaCare runs to 193 pages.  It is the size of a book, only more boring than any book anyone would ever want to read — and that is true despite the fact that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the worst writer on the court, didn’t write it.  I’ve been making a [...]

23 Comments »

Tweet Living as I do in Marin, I pay a lot — a lot — in property taxes.  Because I live in a fairly well-managed place, I mostly feel I get a lot of bang for my buck.  My town is clean, the roads are maintained, the schools are the best that public schools can [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet One of the hardest fought propositions on the California ballot this June is Proposition 29 which is described on the ballot as a new law that “imposes additional tax on cigarettes for cancer research.”  Doesn’t that sound nice?  Those who smoke have to fund cancer research.  It’s an indirect version of “smoker heal thyself.”  [...]

15 Comments »

Tweet Students, not normally a personally wealthy group, are all for redistributing other people’s money.  Apparently, though, they draw the line at redistributing the fruits of their own labors: The next step is to get the students to listen to Jon Lovitz’s F-Bomb laden rant and understand that, whether we’re talking grades or money, it [...]

3 Comments »

Tweet The SF Comical sounds surprised by the fact that the Facebook IPO did not end California’s financial problems.  I think someone needs to watch Bill Whittle’s video, made roughly a year ago, but clearly pertinent today:

No Comments »

Tweet Victor Davis Hanson hits it out of the park with his post explaining why higher taxes are not the answer.  Some of his twelve reasons are better than others, but all are worthy of your consideration.  This is my favorite of the twelve, but I think you’ll like them all: 2) Inequality? Liberals reply [...]

12 Comments »

Tweet Sadie got this in an email and posted it as a comment.  It’s too good, though, not to get wider play.  The beer theory of taxes explains just about everything that’s wrong with a system that drives away the wealth: THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER Suppose that every day, ten men go out [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet Last night was back-to-school night at my daughter’s new high school.  I was deeply impressed.  The facility is beautiful; the classrooms are clean, bright and well-maintained; the teachers are engaging; the test scores are over-the-top; and the expensive extras (fancy computers, lab equipment, etc.) are all in place.  My daughter loves her new school.  [...]

13 Comments »

Tweet Zombie begins to take seriously those who call for radical changes to our taxation system:  Why not let those who demand ever higher taxes, especially for themselves (Buffet, Trump, etc.), have the opportunity to do precisely that?  You should read Zombie’s entire post but, in the meantime, you can enjoy the revised Form 1040 [...]

8 Comments »

Tweet One of life’s truisms is that, on the whole, renters don’t take care of property as well as owners do.   Why should they?  They have no investment in the structure.  If they don’t mind the aesthetics of a scuffed baseboard, stained carpet or dirty walls, it doesn’t matter.  When they leave the property, they [...]

54 Comments »

Tweet The administration’s newest scheme to slow the recovery and, just coincidentally I’m sure, to put monitoring ankle bracelets on all citizens:  Make all possible roads toll roads, and mandate that drivers have toll reading devices on their cars (which are, after all, tracking devices): The White House last week began circulating its legislative proposal [...]

280 Comments »

Tweet Is our democracy germinating the seeds of its own destruction? Alexis de Toqueville warned, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” That day has come. It is not yet gone. Democracy  in ancient Athens lasted about 250 years. We in the [...]

18 Comments »

Tweet San Francisco is definitely up in the top five when it comes to “most Progressively governed cities in America.”  No surprise, then, that the city’s finances are in a shambles.  What is a surprise is the fact that, faced with a looming budget collapse, the City has suddenly discovered capitalist incentives:  it’s offering the [...]

69 Comments »

Tweet

11 Comments »

Tweet On the “real me” facebook, a “joke” is making the rounds: ‎”A public union employee, a tea party activist, and a CEO are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies in the middle of it. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the tea partier and says, ‘Watch [...]

4 Comments »

The U.S. is already bankrupt

13 Comments »

Tweet Are the wheels coming off the bus, or are we witnessing the most brilliant, and dangerous, political theater in our life times? Here’s what it looked like a few days ago:  the President caved on maintaining the current tax rate, leaving Republicans triumphant.  In exchange, it seemed as if the Republicans were extending unemployment [...]

42 Comments »

Tweet Two interesting things rolled across my desk today, interesting because they address the same topic — dependence on Big Government — but reach diametrically opposite conclusions.  The first is a Dennis Prager column that examines why American conservatives are happier than American liberals.  This isn’t just Dennis’ opinion, by the way.  Instead, several recent [...]

31 Comments »

Tweet I blogged earlier this week about the fact that San Francisco, which is broke, was trying to find $137 million so that the feds would provide it with almost $1 billion dollars in funds to build a 1.7 mile subway tunnel.  Federal money, of course, is your money.  This is not money belonging to [...]

6 Comments »

Tweet Many of us view the IRS with a certain amount of suspicion.  Being fair-minded people, we know that all societies need some mechanism to collect revenue to pay for basic government services (with the fault lying with Congress if those revenue demands are excessive).  We also know that our family and friends may work [...]

15 Comments »

Tweet This seemed timely, very timely:

4 Comments »

Tweet In my life, if I’m running at a deficit, I cannot demand more money from my boss.  The only thing I can do is cut my spending.  In the world of government, which is running at a deficit, the fed demands more money from its boss (that would be, collectively, the taxpayers who are [...]

No Comments »