Supporting Iranian Reformers

For years many have suggested that the best way to support reformers in Iran was for the U.S. to be silent, out of fear that American support would taint the reformers politically within Iran.

The Iranian regime's crackdown on dissidents this year in response to the rigged election has provided a test of that advice, and it has proven to be dead wrong. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Iranian opposition leaders continue to press the Obama administration to support their cause publicly.

Tragically, Barack Obama has shown no sign of doing so. It turns out the big change Obama promised us in the 2008 presidential campaign has been to support dictators and undermine allies.

Sneak Preview

A battle between two unions in California provides a preview of what the Democrats card check legislation would produce in labor relations in this country.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the struggle between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) to organize 10,000 healthcare workers in Fresno, CA. The SEIU won the election earlier this year but the NUHW is suing to overturn the results, claiming the SEIU intimated workers to favor them over the NUHW.

Note, this is a battle over which union gets to represent the workers; it is NOT a battle between a union and a company.

The SEIU is alleged to have visited workers up to five times per day; to threaten them with a loss of wages and benefits if they voted for NUHW; and to question their immigration status.

This shows how valuable it is to union bosses to have more members, and more members' dues filling union coffers.

And it illustrates the type of tactics used by labor to pressure workers to vote for unionization that card check legislation would only make worse. Under card check, a secret ballot would no longer be used in union-organizing elections, and instead workers could just check a card during a period of time to vote for unionization. This means workers could be pressured by union activists, at work or home, to sign the card in front of the activists.

Fortunately, card check legislation has been losing steam due to these concerns. The union battle in California reminds us why it is important card check not be passed.

The New Meaning of Going Green

The prospect of legislation to address "global warming" gives new meaning to "going green", as various businesses hope to cash in on cap-and-trade. Among the biggest beneficiaries would be operators of nuclear power plants, since their facilities don't produce carbon dioxide and would receive carbon credits that would be sold to others who produce carbon dioxide - providing a huge windfall for some businesses at the expense of others and the economy as a whole.

Tarped Again

Bank of America is finding it difficult to recruit a new CEO, made more challenging by the prospect of pay czar Kenneth Feinberg needing to review any new employment agreement.

One possible candidate turned down an approach out of fear Feinberg wouldn't approve buying out his unvested stock at his current employer, which is a common and necessary practice to induce an executive to leave his current employer.

So the Obama administration has made it harder to recruit a CEO where the government has a huge investment, making it more difficult for BoA to succeed and make that investment a success.

This is what government intervention produces in the economy. And this type of behavior is what Obama wants to inflict on our healthcare system.

Asset Bubbles

With the Federal Reserve keeping interests at near zero percent and printing money through quantitative easing, many believe asset bubbles are forming in various stock and real estate markets around the world.

The concern has become so great that shortly before Barack Obama arrived in China, the chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission warned that the weak dollar and low U.S. interest rates have led to "massive speculation" around the world.

At best, we are distorting investment decisions which will retard long-term economic growth. At worst, we may be sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis.

The Partisanship Canard

The Wall Street Journal reports an interesting pattern of Congressional voting that shows increasing partisanship over the decades.

The table above from the Wall Street Journal shows that 40 years ago, individual Congressional Republicans and Democrats voted with the majority of their party in 61-63% of the time. Today, they do so to a much higher degree, 85% for Republicans and 89-92% for Democrats.

But the other interesting insight from this chart is that while 40 years ago Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to vote with their party, today Democrats are much more likely to do so. This year, House Democrats voted against their party's majority only 8% of the time, while Senate Democrats did so 11% of the time. Meanwhile, Republicans voted against their party's majority 15% of the time - 88% more often than House Democrats and 36% more often than Senate Democrats.

Obama and the media like to portray Republicans as the source of partisanship in American politics. This data shows partisanship is common to both parties, but particularly so to Democrats.

The Future of Healthcare?

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made a startling announcement this week, changing guidelines for screening for breast cancer. The group seven years ago recommended that women over 40 years old get mammograms, but have now issued revised guidelines advising women to get mammograms after turning 50.

It is certainly the case that new data can lead to a change in a diagnostic or treatment regimen, so the USPSTF's decision hopefully reflects their best current thinking.

But the worry is that the decision could reflect a desire to keep government health care costs down. Even if that wasn't the motivation for this decision, the mammogram controversy illustrates what may be a common occurrence under government-guided healthcare: to what extent will the advice, guidelines, or requirements be a function of the government's desire to cut costs?

Real Economics

This Wall Street Journal article on the negative impact of political uncertainty on small business activity illustrates the "anti-stimulus" actions that Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have taken. Healthcare and global warming legislation suggest that businesses costs may increase in unpredictable ways, while the risk of increasing taxes takes money and incentives for businesses to grow.

On February 1, I laid out my own suggestions in this column for a proper plan to promote economic growth: cutting taxes, barriers to trade, and regulations without PR and legal assaults on businessmen. Instead, Obama and the Democrats have pursued the exact opposite strategy, inducing fear and uncertainty among the very businesses and people we need to feel confident to expand their activities and grow the economy.

The Iran-Venezuela Axis

I wrote on September 29 that the growing relationship between Iran and Venezuela had as one of its goals the installation of Iranian nuclear missiles on Venezuelan soil to threaten America.

I'm now not the only on with that view, since recently Warren Kozak in the Wall Street Journal expressed a similar view.

Iran's nuclear problem is not just of concern because of its impact on the Middle East or Israel, as big a problem as that is for Amercia given the multiple wars we have fought in the region since 1991. If left unchecked, it also poses a direct military threat to American cities.

Clean Water

Bjorn Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace, has done yeoman's work to explain to anyone willing to listen that, of all the problems in the world, global warming is low on the list of priorities to address (and he assumes global warming is a problem).

Lomborg convenes policy makers and economists to develop the Copenhagen Consensus, which represents this group's assessment of what are the truly urgent problems facing the world. Top on the list is access to clean water for the three billion people in the world who lack it.

Lomborg's recent column in the Wall Street Journal discusses the awful conditions that the lack of clean water creates, and why a focus on global warming pales in comparison for the world's poor.

Terrorism in America

Nidal Hasan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood is the worst terrorist attack in America since 9/11.

Naturally the left prefers to think of this as an example of what befalls stressed-out soldiers, but there are lots of soldiers dealing with psychological problems who don't scream "Allahu Akbar" and then proceed to gun down fellow soldiers.

Thankfully, Joe Lieberman is promising an investigation into what the government knew, or didn't know, about Hasan's actions and state of mind before his terror rampage.

The Anti-Stimulus

Johnson & Johnson announced layoffs of 8,200 people. This is just the latest announced job cuts in the pharmaceutical industry, where Pfizer (19,500 job cuts), Merck (15,930), and Eli Lilly (5,500) have recently announced job cuts.

Job reductions are unfortunately a normal part of companies and the economy more broadly reacting to changes in business conditions.

But one such changing condition is the assault being waged by the Obama administration and Democrats on the health care industry through its proposed health care legislation. If profits are tougher to come by, companies will cut jobs and costs to help offset their losses.

J&J went out of its way to say that its job cuts were not related to pending healthcare legislation, and while that may be true, it is certainly possible that they feel the need to say that as the company looks to garner favor with the government.

Think of it as a form of "anti-stimulus", with Obama trying to create public sector and make-work jobs with his "stimulus" bill while high quality private sector jobs in the pharmaceutical industry are lost.

Auo Fiasco

The Wall Street Journal reports that politicians are exerting political pressure on GM to help its constituents, under the premise that since GM took government money, it is like a government agency.

The article highlights a number of efforts by politicians that hurt GM financially, and by extension, the American taxpayer through the government's ownership stake in GM.

This is the face of socialism, where those with political pull get favors to help them economically. And with GM's vast size, there are lots of favors that can be doled out.

More Financial Debacles

The Wall Street Journal reports on a long-predicted problem finally coming to fruition. The Federal Housing Administration is a government-owned company that guarantees mortgages, and during 2007 and 2008, the government wanted the FHA to guarantee more mortgages for those who couldn't otherwise qualify for a mortgage.

If a borrower can't get financing on the open market, there is usually a good reason - they are a bad credit risk. So when the FHA took on guaranteeing such debt, it was stepping into a minefield.

Well, the mines are now bursting. The FHA expects 24% of the loans insured in 2007 and 20% of the 2008 loans to default, wracking up huge losses for the American taxpayer.

America's Image

The Wall Street Journal reports that Iranians staged large protests of the regime on the day traditionally used by the government to demonstrate against America. The regimes gets its thugs to chant "Death to America", so the protesters chanted "Death to the Dictator", a reference to the Iranian leadership.

But the protesters added a remarkable element to their demonstration, also chanting "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them".

So there you have it. America's image in the mind of freedom fighters is now one in which they believe we side with the authoritarian regime - a regime that is one of our leading enemies in the world.

With better presidential leadership, this is an easy call. America should side with the protesters and against our enemy.

Is this the kind of change Americans thought they were getting when they voted for Obama last year? Tuesday's vote suggests not.

Nobel / Noble Insights?

While much has been said about Barack Obama winning the Nobel peace prize, including becoming a punch line of many jokes, there is an important element that has generally been overlooked.

The Nobel committee lauded Obama for his commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and while most realize Obama doesn't have achievements worthy of the peace prize, I want to raise the issue that the Nobel committee, and Obama, are wrong to think that trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons will make the world a safer place.

In the 64 years since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been no direct wars between the major powers. In the 75 year prior, there were two world wars that claimed tens of millions of lives, plus wars between Germany and France (1870), the United States and Spain (1898), and Russia and Japan (1905).

The stunning fact that the nuclear era has been free of war between the major powers isn't a mere coincidence. Instead, it is a function of the protection that the American nuclear umbrella provides to nations in Europe and Asia who are otherwise in close proximity to enemies (the Soviet Union and Europe and China and Japan / Korea) and that the consequence of war between the major powers would be so catastrophic.

It is true we stand at the precipice of rampant nuclear proliferation if we don't stop Iran's nuclear weapons programs. An Iranian nuclear arsenal will spur Arab nations to build nuclear weapons and raise the real specter of nuclear war involving Iran and Israel.

Unfortunately, it seems the only realistic to stop Iran's nuclear program is to destroy it militarily, which no doubt is the exact opposite of what the Nobel committee hopes to achieve with Obama's award.

The Norwegian leftists on the Nobel committee have gotten it exactly backwards: nuclear weapons in the hands of America and its allies have made the world more peaceful than it otherwise would have been, and a military attack is exactly what is needed to stop the disastrous consequences of Iran developing nuclear weapons.

Enabler in Chief

If there is one politician who, above all else, shares the largest responsibility for the financial crisis, it is Representative Barney Frank. He aggressively pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand subprime lending, and he has continued to demonstrate his reckless disregard for sound financial policies by pushing for more aggressive lending to lower- quality borrowers since the financial crisis has begun.

So what is Barney Frank's latest gambit? He and fellow Democrat Walt Minnick wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and FDIC Chairman Sheila Blair urging them to "show some temperance in their regulation of traditional banks.". Specifically, Barney Frank is worried that regulators are being too tough on smaller banks, many of whom have failed this year and many more which may fail due to poor loans quality.

Given the premises of our public-private financial system, this is exactly what regulators should be doing to protect taxpayers from shouldering an ever-higher cost to bail out these banks. Instead, Barney Frank wants these banks to get a break, at the risk of even greater taxpayer losses.

If Barney Frank were ever voted out of office, the stock market should rise 5% on the news - that's how harmful he has been and continues to be to America.

Change We Really Need

Election night was a bad night for Barack Obama and the leftist agenda of Democrats. Big losses in the governor's races in Virginia and deeply blue New Jersey grabbed the headlines, but Republicans made large gains in suburban communities that drifted Democratic the past ten years. One year of Obama's and Nancy Pelosi's leftist agenda has changed that.

This bodes poorly for the left's health care and global warming legislation, as the large number of Democratic congressmen from states or districts that McCain or Bush won in 2008 and 2004 presidential elections will realize their jobs are in jeopardy unless they tack right.

While much can happen in a year, as the change in political fortunes from the 2008 election to today demonstrate, Republicans must feel good about their prospects for picking up many congressional seats in 2010.

Obama Bests Bush

Barack Obama has taken the presidency to new heights as compared to his predecessor.

Obama has had 26 fundraisers in his first nine months in office as compare to six for George Bush during his first 12 months.

Obama also has golfed far more often than Bush: Obama has golfed in nine months as many rounds of golf that Bush took well over two years to play.

That's sure change we need.

You Can't Make This Up

In its attempt to get people to buy electric cars, the Obama administration provides a federal tax credit of up to $5,000 to subsidize their purchase.

Golf carts, which are electric-powered, are covered by this program. And when combined with subsidies provided by state government, up to 100% of the golf cart's price can be free.

While there may be no free lunch, with the advent of the Obama administration, there are free golf carts.