“Responsible credit-card users to ‘subsidize’ deadbeats now”

Via Hot Air’s ALLAHPUNDIT,

Just a little friendly congressional intervention in the marketplace to shift risk from people who can’t afford the product to people who can. Hey — it worked out with mortgages, didn’t it?

“Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”…

The industry says that the proposals will force banks to issue fewer credit cards at greater cost to the current cardholders.”

You’re already helping to pay off deadbeats’ homes. Why not help free them up to rack up some more credit-card debt too?

Exit question: Er, isn’t this an exceedingly bad idea during a recession? People with good credit will be less likely to make major purchases for fear of the monthly interest and people with bad credit will be more likely to start charging, and then inevitably defaulting. Good work, Congress.

Published in: on May 19, 2009 at 8:17 pm  Comments (1)  

“Happiness is…Being Old, Male, and Republican”

This from the Pew Research Center, which is consistent with studies done in the past.  I normally see “married” also attached to this demographic, but not in this particular study.

Via Livescience.com,  (hat tip Tony the Tiger)

Americans grow happier as they age, surveys find. And a new Pew Research Center survey shows the tendency is holding up as the economy tanks.

Happiness is a complex thing. Past studies have found that happiness is partly inherited, that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and that old men tend to be happier than old women.

And even before the economy got nasty, seniors were found to be generally happier than Baby Boomers. Some of that owes to the American Dream being lived by past generations, while Boomers work two jobs and watch the dream wither.

In times like this, it’s clear how age can have its advantages. While not all seniors are weathering the recession well, for many the impact is much less severe than it is for younger people.

Why? Many people 65 and older retired and downsized their lifestyles before the economy imploded, according to Pew analysts. Most aren’t raising kids and many are not so worried about being laid off. Loss of income can be, of course, a source of stress and displeasure. (While money doesn’t buy happiness, a study in February showed cash can help, especially when people use it to do stuff instead of buy things.)

If you’re thinking that Republicans are happy just because they perhaps make more money, that does not seem to be the case. The study that found Republicans to be happier than Democrats also showed that it held true even after adjusting for income.

It’s those age 50-64 who’ve “seen their nest eggs shrink the most and their anxieties about retirement swell the most,” the Pew survey found. It also finds that younger adults (ages 18-49) “have taken the worst lumps in the job market but remain relatively upbeat about their financial future.”

Not everyone in any category is blissful, of course. Other research has shown that happiness in old age depends largely on attitude factors such as optimism and coping strategies. Add financial planning to the list.

In the new Pew telephone survey, taken in March and April of 2,969 adults, here’s how many respondents in each age group said they had cut back on spending in the past year:

  • 18-49: 68 percent
  • 50-64: 59 percent
  • 65+: 36 percent.

And is the recession causing stress in your family?

  • 18-49: 52 percent
  • 50-64: 58 percent
  • 65+: 38 percent.

Now for the good news: A study in January found that key groups of people in the United States have grown happier over the past few decades, while other have become less so. The result: Happiness inequality has decreased since the 1970s. Americans are becoming more similar to each other on the happiness scale.

Published in: on May 18, 2009 at 8:15 pm  Leave a Comment  

“The Ever-Increasing Cost of C(r)ap-and-T(i)rade”

Via Michelle Malkin,

If you haven’t phoned your congressional reps yet over the ever-increasing cost of the Dems’ c(r)ap-and-t(i)rade global warming proposals, what are you waiting for? Call 202-224-3121.

As I’ve noted before, the national eco-taxes are in trouble with nervous Blue Dog Democrats. But the plan isn’t going to go down without the mobilization of tens of thousands of Tea Party activists spreading the word and pressuring both parties in Congress.

The Heritage Foundation has just released a new economic analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill:

Though the proposed legislation would have little impact on world temperatures, it is a massive energy tax in disguise that promises job losses, income cuts, and a sharp left turn toward big government.

Ultimately, this bill would result in government-set caps on energy use that damage the economy and hobble growth–the very growth that supports investment and innovation. Analysis of the economic impact of Waxman-Markey projects that by 2035 the bill would:

* Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.6 trillion;
* Destroy 1,105,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 2,479,000 jobs;
* Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
* Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent;
* Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent;
* Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500; and
* Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 26 percent, or $29,150 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

The Washington Examiner weighs in: “That is a prescription for wrecking American prosperity for decades to come.”

Haven’t we been force-fed enough of those recipes already?

Published in: on May 18, 2009 at 7:45 pm  Leave a Comment  

Truth Commission? You asked for it, Nan.

Via Michelle Malkin,

The House Republicans are not letting up on Nancy Pelosi. Good.

GOP House Leader Boehner says put up the evidence that the CIA lied or apologize:


And the House GOP Conference is pounding the Democratic culture of corruption: “Tonight, House Republican Conference Secretary John Carter will lead Special Orders live on CSPAN to review where we are to date on action into alleged ethics violations by Charlie Rangel, John Murtha, Alan Mollohan, and now the Speaker herself.”

As I’ve said before, rebranding the corruptocrat Dems is a far more effective strategy than sending out the same old loser Beltway Republicans to “rebrand” the GOP.

***

Eh. Mike Huckabee tries his hand at anti-Nan Pelosi poetry.

But nothing beats Treacher’s Pelosiku.

Published in: on May 18, 2009 at 7:15 pm  Leave a Comment  

“No, Mr. President”

Via Hot Air,

As Freddoso puts it in his postmortem of The One’s speech:

“Notre Dame sent another clear message to its new graduates by honoring a politician who has spent his entire career resisting even the smallest legal protection for the unborn. To tomorrow’s Catholic leaders, Notre Dame has said that the direct and deliberate taking of innocent human life through abortion is just one issue among many, and nothing worth getting too upset about.”

Indeed. The most important thing — the supreme virtue — is “dialogue.” No doubt Netanyahu’s getting an earful about that right now.


Published in: on May 18, 2009 at 7:08 pm  Leave a Comment  

Friday’s FrontPage

Patriot Burr is not a one-dimensional media maven.

I’ve also been co-hosting a political and current events radio show every Friday for more than 6 months now.  Mark Halvorsen, host of FrontPage on WWIB radio, has graciously invited me to join him for an hour of (mostly) political opinion, education, and debate.

I’ve had several requests to make finding my Friday radio appearances easier, so I plan to add them on Fridays after the show.  You can listen live in western Wisconsin on 103.7FM, Fridays from 10-11am (and also Monday-Thursday to Mark as he covers current events, controversy, and courageous living).

This week we debated callers about the Wisconsin state-wide smoking ban, interviewed President of Wisconsin Family Action- Julaine Appling, interviewed National Review contributor Jim Geraghty about his latest column “The Alinsky Administration,” and talked about other issues in the news.

Find the full program here.

Published in: on May 15, 2009 at 7:24 pm  Leave a Comment  

Obama Inflates the Truth on Health Care Agreement

From Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey,

Earlier this week, President Obama announced that American health providers had pledged to cut costs by 1.5% each of the next ten years as a means to stave off an economic crisis in the industry.  Now Obama’s partners say that the President misstated their agreement, and that they pledged to eventually ramp up to a 1.5% annual savings rate over the next ten years:

The president of the American Hospital Association said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been “spun way away from the original intent.”

President Barack Obama described the agreement this week with six major health care organizations as a “watershed event,” hailing what the White House said was their promise to reduce spending by 1.5 percentage points annually for a decade, which he said could save as much as $2 trillion over that span.

But in a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years – not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.

“There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin,” Umbdenstock said on the call. “And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we’ve been very clear on what we have committed to.”

The entire agreement had an air of unreality to it, anyway.  What business doesn’t try to cut costs?  Costs eat into profit, and shareholders demand efficiency.  Even a 1.5% reduction in costs benefits businesses of all stripes, especially those with thin profit margins thanks to price-setting by the government and competitive pressures from insurance agreements.

The White House responded to this development by insisting that the groups remained “enthusiastic” about the agreement.  Perhaps, but they’re apparently unclear as to what was agreed.  They’re enthusiastically insisting that Obama misrepresented the pact.  Either they did agree to what Obama stated, went back and looked at their books, and got a lot less enthusiastic — or Obama got it wrong and overpromised.

The more conspiratorial may believe that the overpromise was deliberate, setting up the AHA for failure so that Obama can impose his government-dictated system on the country while blaming the AHA.  Before the campaign of intimidation against Chrysler senior creditors, I would have scoffed.  Now, I’m not so sure.

Published in: on May 15, 2009 at 6:58 pm  Leave a Comment  

“Stop Al Gore and the Eco-Taxers”

From Michelle Malkin,

Al Gore wants to create his own green “1984.” CEI hurls a sledgehammer at the eco-tax-and-spenders with a new ad campaign. Watch and spread the word:


Published in: on May 13, 2009 at 7:19 pm  Leave a Comment  

Smoking Gun on EPA Deception on Cap-and-”Trade”

From Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), via The Heritage Foundation,

Today I exposed a “smoking gun” White House memo to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The memo warns that regulation of small CO2 emitters will have “serious economic consequences” for businesses and the overall economy. I was questioning EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee budget hearing.

I received the memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for this proposed finding. This is a smoking gun, saying that the EPA findings were political and not scientific.

The EPA has failed to release the memo and has ignored the advice.

The nine-page White House memo undermines the EPA’s reasoning for a proposed finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health.

This misuse of the Clean Air Act will be a trigger for overwhelming regulation and lawsuits based on gases emitted from cars, schools, hospitals and small business. This will affect any number of other sources, including lawn mowers, snowmobiles and farms. This will be a disaster for the small businesses that drive America.

To quote from the memo to the EPA, “making the decision to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the US economy, including small businesses and small communities.”

The memo is an amalgamation of findings from government agencies’ sent from the Office of Management and Budget to the EPA.

This smoking gun memo is in stark contrast to the official position presented by the Administration and the EPA Administrator.

Despite the findings in the memo, the White House has given the EPA the green light to move ahead with regulation under the Clean Air Act.

According to government records, the document was submitted by the OMB as comment on the EPA’s April proposed finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare.

The memo – marked as “Deliberative-Attorney Client Privilege” – doesn’t have a date or a named author. But an OMB spokesman confirmed to news agencies that it was prepared by Obama administration staff.

BACKGROUND: The White House brief questions the link between the EPA’s scientific technical endangerment proposal and the EPA’s political summary. Administrator Jackson said in the endangerment summary that “scientific findings in totality point to compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, and that serious risks and potential impacts to public health and welfare have been clearly identified…”

The White House memo notes, the EPA endangerment technical document points out there are several areas where essential behaviors of greenhouse gases are “not well determined” and “not well understood.”

It warns about the adequacy of the EPA finding that the gases are a harm to the public when there is “no demonstrated direct health effects,” and the scientific data on which the agency relies are “almost exclusively from non-EPA sources.”

The memo contends that the endangerment finding, if finalized by the administration, could make agencies vulnerable to litigation alleging inadequate environmental permitting reviews, adding that the proposal could unintentionally trigger a cascade of regulations.

Published in: on May 12, 2009 at 7:49 pm  Leave a Comment  

Notre Dame Students Lead

It’s been encouraging to see reports of students and faculty who plan to boycott this weekend’s graduation ceremony at Notre Dame University.  It’s unfortunate that the school’s leaders refuse to take a similar stand.

Via Hot Air,

A presidential speech at a commencement confers a substantial amount of prestige onto a university, at least under normal circumstances. This Sunday, though, Notre Dame students believe the university will damage its prestige and its mission as a Catholic university by honoring President Barack Obama with a doctorate in his appearance.  They have mobilized to protest the award and the invitation, and in the process the students and faculty may be teaching Notre Dame instead of the other way around:

In defense of the unborn, we wish to express our deepest opposition to Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.’s invitation of President Barack Obama to be the University of Notre Dame’s principal commencement speaker and the recipient of an honorary degree. Our objection is not a matter of political partisanship, but of President Obama’s hostility to the Catholic Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life at its earliest stages. Further, the University’s decision runs counter to the policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops against honoring pro-choice politicians. We cannot sit by idly while the University honors someone who believes that an entire class of human beings is undeserving of the most basic of all legal rights, the right to live.

Additionally, Fr. Jenkins has put some of his students into a position of moral dilemma as to whether they should attend their own graduation. Many pro-life seniors, along with their families, now feel personally conflicted about participating in the commencement. The lack of concern for these devoted sons and daughters of Notre Dame, who love this University and the Catholic principles on which it was built, is shameful.

Published in: on May 12, 2009 at 7:33 pm  Leave a Comment  
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