Everything You Ever Needed to Know about the Left’s View of Income Inequality, Captured in a Single Image

Daniel J. Mitchell / Townhall Columnist

 

If you want to know why the left is wrong about income inequality, you need to watch this Margaret Thatcher video. In just a few minutes, the “Iron Lady” explains how some – perhaps most – statists would be willing to reduce income for the poor if they could impose even greater damage on the rich.

This picture is another way of getting across the same point. It was sent to me by Richard Rahn (famous for the Rahn Curve), and it uses two pizzas to show how leftist policies would “solve” inequality. 

I like this analogy, and not just because I also used the pizza analogy to make the same argument in this TV interview.

The growing or shrinking pizza is useful because it helps to focus people on the importance of growth.

Nations that follow the right policy recipe can enjoy the kind of strong and sustained growth that enables huge increases in prosperity for all income classes. In other words, everyone can have a bigger slice if the pie is growing.

I even tried to educate a PBS audience that growth is better than redistribution if you really want to help the poor. Talk about Daniel in the Lion’s Den!

I don’t know if I persuaded anyone, but at least the facts are on my side. Consider, for instance, how the world’s two most laissez-faire jurisdictions – Hong Kong and Singapore – have overtaken the United States over the past 50-plus years.

That’s been great news for low-income and middle-income people, not just the rich.

So ask yourself whether you’d rather be a poor person in one of those jurisdiction or in France. The government in France has all sorts of programs to make your life easier, but you have very little hope of escaping a life of dependency.

And now ask yourself whether it’s good that Obama is doing his best to push America in that direction.

P.S. If you want another example of how long-run growth makes a big difference, check out this chart comparing Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. Not only has Chile overtaken the other nation thanks to pro-market reforms, but the poverty rate has fallen dramatically.

P.P.S. Since this post shares a very good image about income inequality, let’s include a bonus picture on taxation.

It’s a helpful suggestion on how to make kids aware of the cost of big government. 

Though let’s be sure to acknowledge that Obama is doing what he can to make kids more skeptical of class warfare.

P.P.P.S. On a separate topic, I’ve explained that the so-called “austerity” vs “growth” argument is grossly misguided because Keynesian spending isn’t pro-growth and also because it’s important to distinguish between good austerity and bad austerity.

Too many governments are choosing the wrong type of austerity, imposing destructive tax hikes on the private sector. What’s really needed in genuine spending restraint so that “austerity” is imposed on the public sector.

But some folks on the left say there’s been too much spending restraint in recent years.

So who’s right? Well, UBS has produced a report containing some very useful data.

Viewing the global economy as a single unit, we see a very different picture to the post-crisis world of austerity – at least if “austerity” is taken to mean government spending cuts. The two largest components of global GDP, namely private consumption and fixed investment, both hit multi-year peaks in the first quarter of 2008. …Since the start of 2008, government consumption at the global level has risen by 20% in real terms, whereas private consumption and fixed investment have risen just 8% and 5%, respectively. In other words, despite talk of austerity, government spending continues to run ahead of private-sector spending.

Hmmm…the burden of government has been growing faster than the private sector. That’s the opposite of what the Golden Rule calls for.

And not only has government been growing too fast in the past, it’s likely that fiscal policy will get even worse in the future.

Structurally, government debt, government spending, and the share of government within the economy must be sustainable. Government consumption’s share of global GDP has risen from 11% to 14% over the past 15 years. In 2013, it reached its highest level since 1980. At the same time, government debt-to-GDP ratios have hit record highs in many countries. In the long run, such elevated levels of expenditure (and corresponding levels of debt and deficit) are probably not sustainable, in particular, given other structural changes underway. For instance, demographic trends in many advanced economies pose challenges.

The moral of the story is that America and other nations should be restraining budgets, ideally by enacting the right kind of entitlement reform.

Though I’m worried that Obama is learning the wrong lesson from what’s happening in Europe.

Indeed, this Henry Payne cartoon shows what he has in mind. And if he succeeds, this satirical 2012 campaign slogan may become reality.

P.P.P.P.S. Here’s a final image that captures the essence of Washington.

Conservatives Must Break the Establishment’s Rules

Kurt Schlichter / Townhall Columnist

 

Have you noticed how the Establishment invents a lot of special rules that only seem to apply to conservatives? Have you noticed how these rules always involve preventing conservatives from winning? And have you noticed how these rules never, ever seem to apply to our enemies?

Take the imbroglio over Wendy Davis, the pride of Harvard Law School and the scourge of fetuses everywhere. Turns out her story of pulling herself up by her stiletto straps was a bit more complicated than it initially appeared. And by “a bit more complicated,” I mean it appears to be a miasma of distortions, omissions and outright deception.

That is, if the left wing mainstream journalist who wrote it is accurate. I mean, we can’t know for certain if the older, established husband she married was telling the truth when he said she dumped him – and her kids – the day after he finished paying for that Harvard Law School education we keep hearing about, nor can we know if his initial legal claim of adultery was accurate.

Apparently now it’s unfair to mention the possibility that Wendy Davis, who expects the citizens of the Lone Star State to trust in her character enough to elect her governor, might be a gold-digging user who tosses aside those closest to her when they become inconvenient to her personal agenda.

That would seem important information to know about someone I was being asked to rely upon to represent my interests.

But remember, “sexism” is holding a liberal woman to the same standards of integrity as a man.

Think of the MSNBC coverage if Sarah Palin – who was raked over the coals for keeping her child – was accused of a tenth of Wendy’s perfidy. They’d probably even preempt Lock-Up.

So we conservatives are supposed to be silent about the faux heroine in tennis shoes who valiantly fought against the peril of babies being born, about the women whose face launched a thousand Manhattan fundraisers, about the newest feminist icon and symbol of just what a woman can do when her soon-to-be ex is writing the checks.

The rules say we must to be silent, that talking about her is somehow not understanding women’s stories. Gosh, the last thing we’d want to do is not understand a woman’s story, whatever that means. We better just sit, quiet and obedient. We’d better obey the Establishment’s rules.

Their rules. The rules that keep them in power. The rules that didn’t apply when the NYT ran a barely sourced hit piece on John McCain’s alleged affair during his campaign. Those rules.

Nah. The hell with their rules. Wendy Davis sounds like a terrible person who will treat her constituents with the same disregard that she treated her kids and I’m glad there’s a conservative media out there to do the job the mainstream media only does on conservatives. Wendy Davis is the power-hungry, hypocritical, elitist face of modern liberalism.

There’s another rule we didn’t hear about until Chris Christie stopped haranguing conservatives long enough to explain why his administration thought it was cool to abuse the public for its own personal amusement. Apparently, we’re supposed to offer our credibility in support of Christie in his time of need. He’s a Republican you know, and the rules say that when a Republican moderate needs conservatives, we conservatives are duty bound to come running.

Vice versa? Not so much.

So we’ll get right on that.

Trusting in Christie not to stick us in the back by having some new revelation come out right after we stand up for him seems like a solid strategy. We can totally expect Christie to repay us with support and loyalty in the off chance that no Twitter direct message surfaces reading “Sure hope the toll lane closure I ordered doesn’t slow up the Dominos guy.”

Just ask President Romney about Christie’s loyalty.

The Establishment’s rules also require that we stop demanding that Republicans who claim to be conservative act like conservatives, support conservatism and, you know, be conservative. The rules are there because this short-sighted insistence by conservatives on conservatism is somehow certain to prevent the success of conservatism. We conservatives are just too unsophisticated to understand that true conservatism will only be achieved by a strategy of surrender, compromise and acquiescence to expanded government power.

Don’t fight amnesty! Don’t you know that by fighting amnesty you’ll ensure that people who will never, ever vote for us will never, ever vote for us? Of course, defeating amnesty also means they will never, ever vote for our opponents either, but that subtle insight doesn’t seem to get much play.

Don’t get upset that Republicans went along with slashing our active duty military retirees’pensions!

Don’t you know that the path to political success involves trashing the only subset of governmental employees that has both a moral claim on a decent pension and generally supports Republicans? The smart play for the GOP was picking on vets instead of any other beneficiaries of a government that pays money to losers for sitting on their ample bottoms watching Judge Judy all day, that hands out piles of cash to Democrat green energy fraudsters, and that funds bizarre performance art projects that combine flag desecration, hot fudge and sodomy.

The rule for conservatives is to sit down, shut up, and write checks – except at election time, when they need us to come out and man phone banks, walk precincts and vote, vote, vote for the smug jerks who will later huddle with their buddies in D.C. bars laughing at how dumb we rubes truly are.

The rules say we need to just sit and take it. But we need to tell the Establishment geniuses what they can take their rules and do, and they won’t be able to do it sitting down.

The Left’s jihad on Western culture: People must be “educated” to embrace “Arab” culture

Nicolai Sennels  / Jihad Watch

 

This is, especially from a European perspective, a worrying development. French Socialist president Francois Hollande — who got his job due to Muslim votes — sets all sails in order to increase the influence of “Arab” culture in Europe’s second biggest country. Translated from the German newspaper Welt by Sandra:

Veils in school, holidays for foreigners

The government of President Hollande forces a radical change in integration policy, stating that France should accept its “Oriental-Arab heritage.” This is met with harsh criticism. By Sascha Lehnartz, Paris

In the future, wearing a veil in school should not be a problem anymore. France should acknowledge its “Oriental-Arab heritage.” And for the purpose of promoting integration, prominent streets and squares should be named after celebrities with an immigrant background. As the word is hardly fostering integration, integration should not be called “integration” anymore. Instead, an “inclusive and solidarity we” should be created.

This hopeful scenario was not thought up by two multiculti-paradise prophets in the bubbling of a very vigorous water pipe. It stems from an official report on immigration and integration for the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. On the basis of this report, Ayrault will initiate consultations on a major reorientation of the French integration policy in early January.

“We want to change the way integration is being addressed,” it reads from the Palais Matignon, the seat of the Prime Minister. “We strive for a policy which is heavily based on equality and the fight against discrimination.”

This realignment is likely to lead to heated debates and to dominate the upcoming European and municipal elections next year. Marine Le Pen and the Front National should be somewhat grateful that their favorite subject is being served in such a bite-sized manner. The conservative “Figaro” is worriedly reporting about a “shock report.”


“Inclusive and solidarity we (feeling)”

In his governmental statement in July 2012, Ayrault announced that he had “the ambition to change the access to integration issues in France fundamentally.” Since last summer, five working groups have been busy contemplating different aspects of integration policy.

The result was the central recommendation to policy makers to aim for an “inclusive and solidarity we (feeling).” Policy makers would therefore have to formulate a “society project” that would allow France to acknowledge the “gain” of “cultural diversity.”

To achieve this goal, a “paradigm shift” in the integration policy, that has so far been mainly focused on pushing immigrants to adopt the French model of civilization, would be necessary.


Reinvention of French identity

Now, this policy should aim primarily at reducing inequalities and discrimination. The main goals would be to “live equally together,” “produce possibilities” and create a new community. In other words: nothing less than to reinvent the French identity.

To this end, the curriculum of primary schools is already to be massively reformed: The reformers suggest “discussion workshops in all grade levels on topics such as differentness, identity, gender and religion.” It is also envisaged “re-evaluating the history of France completely,” since the history curricula are crucial “to live up to the diversity of society and facilitate identification with the inclusive we,” it says in the report, which the “Figaro” quoted extensively.

To raise awareness about the culturally diverse roots of today’s French society, the reform project intends to address “the migration flows of population groups” in history lessons, paying particular attention to “slavery and slave trade,” as well as the history of the Roma.

The REAL Obama: An INDONESIAN, Muslim, Socialist Puppet

By Craig Andresen  / The National Patriot 

Over the last several days, conservatives across social media have been circulating an image, a split screen cut and paste of Obama and Mohammed (Pak) Subud  along with a link to a very well thought out piece from Jason Kissner at American Thinker.

That piece brings several…”Coincidences” to light.

When it comes to politics and Obama’s past, there are no such things as “coincidences.”

Kissner shows links between Obama’s “mother” Stanly Ann Dunham to a certain Subud spiritual cult and also documents the verifiable link between the Subud cult and one Loretta Fuddy.

Fuddy, you will remember, was the woman who had been appointed in January, 2011, to head the agency in Hawaii that “verified” Obama’s birth certificate…The one he finally, after years of questions, displayed to the world in March of 2011.

Fuddy also was the lone non-survivor of a small plane crash off the coast of Hawaii just a couple of months ago.

No coincidences…Remember?

The idea being promoted is that this Mohammad Subud, the founder of the Subud cult, is Obama’s real father but, before we get to that, there IS something regarding that split-screen image you should know.

It is a composite.

According to Adrien Nash who wrote an article yesterday, “I copied and reversed Subud’s eye and replaced Obama’s which was squinting.”

A composite/split-screen that makes the 2 look more like each other than they otherwise might is not only the wrong way to highlight the visual similarities but, it is completely unnecessary.

The speculation is and, let’s remember, when it comes to Obama’s past we MUST speculate as his official past has been completely buried, that this Subud fathered the man we know as Barack Hussein Obama.

For the speculation to be true, one must assume that in 1960, Subud and Stanley Ann Dunham met, somewhere, and he, got her, pregnant thus leading to a child who would, after several name changes…Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, Barry Obama, Steven Dunham , Barry Soetoro and the name first noticed back in 2011 regarding an application for a passport extension filed by Stanley Ann Soetoro in 1968.

THAT name was found in the section for either including or exempting a child’s name from the passport and the name she placed THERE before crossing it out was, Barack Hussein Obama (Soebarkah)

Op-ed:

January 20th...the day Iran made us a laughing stock courtesy of Barack HUSSEIN Obama

By: Diane Sori

“A bad deal, a very, very, bad deal. It’s the deal of a century for Iran; it’s a very dangerous and bad deal for peace and the international community.”
-Benjamin Netanyahu

The Iranian nuclear deal that 'supposedly' just went into effect on January 20th is anything but a disarmament deal for according to those in the Obama administration it really was only designed to buy time for additional negotiations on a final agreement to dismantle Iran's nuclear program. But if truth be told it is really a deal designed to give Iran the time needed to get the very weapon this deal was supposed to prevent them from getting.

Besides, everyone knows that any deal 'supposedly' reached with a rogue nation lasts only until that rogue nation leaves the room...if it even lasts that long.

The deal...NO the sellout of America NOT to mention Israel...that John 'Swiftboat' Kerry reached last November with the Iranian regime actually amounts to 'aiding and abetting' the enemy...to funding the enemy...as it calls for the immediate release of $4.2 billion in currently frozen Iranian assets and over the next six months having a total of $7 billion in frozen assets released to the very nation hell bent on first wiping Israel off the map and then turning their what will be new found nuclear weapons on us...the country they still call the 'Great Satan.' 

 

"We are not dismantling any centrifuges. We are not dismantling any equipment," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has said. And Obama mouthpiece Jay Carney, speaking on behalf of the administration agreed, saying at a recent press conference that any actual dismantling would come in a "future more comprehensive agreement" than the one brokered in November.

Like I said this deal is all about 'aiding and abetting' the enemy for we are getting what amounts to NOTHING in this deal...NOTHING...Iran and Iran alone gets what they want...and both Obama and Kerry know it...and so does Benjamin Netanyahu.

And as for those assets being released in relation to 'aiding and abetting' the enemy, the proof is plain to see for NO stipulations, NO provisions, and NO oversights as to how those dollars are to be used or NOT used was ever put in place...NOT in writing nor verbally. This means that the Iranian regime can use those released dollars any way they so choose, including to continue to finance their state sponsored support of and participation in terrorism...and Obama knows this damn well and doesn't care...he simply doesn't care. 

 

In fact, when the question of "what safeguards will be in place to make sure that money is not funneled to terror groups by Iran," was posed to Jay Carney he outright refused to answer the reporter's question. Translation of his refusal...NO safeguards at all are in place to stop Iran from funneling those released assets to terrorists...to jihadists...or to bomb building for that matter...and Iran now gets to do it all with Barack HUSSEIN Obama's stamp of approval.

Now get this happy little fact...the 'anything but a deal' that Kerry brokered...a deal that Obama wanted just so he could pat himself on the back and say that he got a deal...was NEVER actually signed by any of the parties involved...NOT one signature appears anywhere in print. And something the alphabet media is NOT reporting on...but I will...is that this six month interim deal is actually only a 'preliminary agreement,' which according to White House officials is nothing to be concerned about nor is it out of the ordinary for 'preliminary agreements' NOT being signed. But I say this maneuver sells out our country's interests (and Israel's too) because it means Iran can ignore any and all parts of the deal they so choose to ignore, as always happens when 'supposed' deals are reached with rouge nations out to kill us all...and Barack HUSSEIN Obama damn well knows this and again, just doesn't care.

And so the Obama 'smoke and mirror' show continues on unabated as only one who sides with those on the 'other' side...with those who in reality are the ones calling the shots...could claim they have an agreement in place with...interim or otherwise...when nobody has signed it...for a verbal deal...and that is what this is...is NOT worth the paper it's NOT printed on.

So as Barack HUSSEIN Obama continues to try his damnedest to make sure that Congress imposes NO new sanctions on Iran...more 'aiding and abetting' I would say...remember that a few short years ago this very man, along with former Secretary of State Hillary 'What Does It Matter' Clinton, spoke of Iran as being the world's “most active state sponsor of terrorism.” Yet now this most miserable of presidents relishes in catering to the very regime that within the six month interim period now in effect will most likely reach their objective of having a nuclear weapon simply because this unsigned 'anything but a deal' does NOT prohibit them from enriching uranium or having to dismantle anything...and that includes their heavy-water reactor that is capable of producing plutonium nuclear fuel.

And so Iran got all it wanted as it played NOT only the US but the P5+1 for fools...with Obama's and Kerry's help of course. And while it's true that the economic sanctions placed on them got Iran to the negotiating table, it got them there on their terms NOT on our terms. And this very 'anything but a deal' now in effect proves it, for if Iran was truly serious about wanting to forge new relationships with the West they would start by making changes within the Iranian society itself and they have NOT done one single thing to that affect. And while outwardly they might appear to be somewhat toning down their war mongering rhetoric their goals remain the same...to become a nuclear nation still intent on bringing on Israel's demise and then coming for us.

And while we have been dealing with Jimmy Carter's Iran for over three decades now, thanks to this 'anything but a deal' initiated by this most traitorous of presidents we will be dealing with Barack HUSSEIN Obama's nuclear armed Iran for generations to come...and just think of the ramifications of that if they do as they have always sworn to do...as in the Middle East and the world will NEVER again be the same...period.