Amazing how many foreign socialists have figured out economics while our current Administration remains clueless:

Canada is poised to cut its corporate-tax rate to 16.5% on Jan. 1, part of a decade-long campaign that some experts say is making the country one of the most cost-effective places to do business in the developed world…

Meanwhile, we stagger along with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world – because our liberals hate the big, evil corporations. Well, liberals, I don’t like them, either – but when you tax a corporation all you do is punish the workers and consumers: corporations don’t pay taxes. They pass the cost on to the consumer – either in the form of higher prices or, in our increasingly global economy, by moving the consumer’s jobs to foreign lands. There should be a big, fat ZERO corporate tax in the United States – tax the income of corporate bosses if you really must play the class warfare game, but don’t tax the income of corporations…it is counter-productive.

Unfortunately, as long as Obama is President, we have no chance at all of getting this right…

After all, its not like he’s ever taken once since becoming President, right?

…Mr. Obama and his family – Michelle Obama, the first lady, and daughters Malia and Sasha – who are vacationing in the quiet town of Kailua on the windward side of the island of Oahu, initially planned to return to Washington on New Year’s Day. Then, when Mr. Obama arrived, the White House announced he would leave Jan. 2. Now their departure has been pushed back yet again, to Jan. 3, which means the Obama girls may miss the first day or two back at school after their holiday break…

Of course, there is an upside to this – while he’s vacationing with the kids, he’s not on TV pestering us…so, go ahead and extend that vacation, Mr President. In fact, we might not need you back before, oh, November. Of 2012. By then, we hope to get a great speech from you.

From an interview over at NRO:

…nro: Are you going to try to use your influence there to, as per your book title, “End the Fed”?

PAUL: Not directly. Indirectly, though, yes. The Fed will end because the system we have is not viable. All printing-money systems always end. So my goal in the book as well as in the committee is to expose the Fed for what they do, how important it is economically, why they don’t achieve what they pretend to achieve, and why they need to have more transparency. I would just like to legalize competition, legalize the Constitution, and allow people to use gold and silver as legal tender. And then if people don’t like the paper money, they can start using gold and silver in savings accounts or spending or whatever. Today if you do that, you go to prison.

nro: So your goal is to end the federal government’s monopoly over currency, essentially.

PAUL: That is it. It has monopoly control over supply of money and credit. And it was never meant to be that way. Under the gold standard, the supply of money is dependent on the market and the interest rates are dependent on savings rather than the Fed dictating the interest rate…

Since the mis-named “progressives” first saddled us with the Federal Reserve in 1913, our currency has lost, depending on how you calculate it, 90 to 99% of its value. I go with 99%. This has been a slow theft of money from the producers and it has been transferred to bureaucrats, government contractors, welfare recipients and people high up in the financial industry. While national wealth has increased over this past century, it is nowhere near where it would be had we kept to real money. And, meanwhile, the price of our expanded national wealth via fiat money has been a gigantic debt which threatens us with complete ruin. It is time to end this – and while Paul has been a bit of a political odd ball, I think the man and the hour have met.

With Ron Paul exposing the truth about the Fed and our entire financial system, we’ll hopefully start to develope the political ability to return to gold and silver currency. Some say it can’t be done – that we need the vast sums of fiat currency in circulation just to keep things moving. Take that away and things will seize up. My view is that this is just fear mongering by those who stand to lose in a return to gold – ie, the people who have used the slow theft of productive wealth to benefit themselves.

Ultimately, we should turn in our fiat money for gold and silver money – it would be a complex operation, but the nutshell of it would be to turn in our current money at a 100-1 ratio…100 fiat dollars for 1 gold dollar. In other words, take back the 99% of our monetary value which has been taken away. That 1,400 ounce of gold would then become a $14 ounce of gold. The $250,000 house would become a $2,500 house. A $20 an hour wage would become 20 cents an hour (which lets you see where wages have really gone for the working man in a century – in 1913 it was 8 cents an hour, but with no taxes!). And once we do it, we just stick with it…and then only hard work, savings and careful investment can be used to increase wealth…no more funny money, get-rich-quick schemes in finance, no more borrowing to buy votes.

A new day can come to America – but only if we return to a rational society. A society of work and savings; a society of public decency; a society which has rediscovered our sublime Constitution and which has turned towards God as the fountainhead of both that Constitution and all things good. Ron Paul may just get the ball rolling towards that new day, and I wish him the best of luck.

Long ago predicted – no surprise here, at all. From CNBC:

U.S. single-family home prices fell for a fourth straight month in October pressured by a supply glut, home foreclosures and high unemployment, data from a closely watched survey showed Tuesday.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 1.0 percent in October from September on a seasonally adjusted basis, a much steeper drop than the 0.6 percent fall expected by economists…

The improvement in home sales and prices earlier this year was, as also predicted, entirely mythical…forced through by a government subsidy which merely advanced home purchase dates, thus giving the appearance of health to the market. The hard facts of life about housing are these:

On the demand side –

1. Unemployment is high, thus taking millions of potential buyers out of the housing market.

2. A large number of potential buyers are out of the market even if they have jobs as their credit rating has been wrecked because they lost their last house.

3. Baby boomers are heading for retirement and thus, if anything, are looking to downsize their housing – meanwhile, the follow-on generations are not as large, thus adding another hit to potential demand, even if the economy were really improving.

4. Banks are wary of taking on loans in a poor economy and thus under writing rules, too long ignored in the bubble, are essentially taking a lot of people out of the market.

On the supply side –

1. There is a very large inventory of unsold homes on the market. If everything started selling at a brisk pace it would still take a long time to get supply down to the point where prices can even so much as stabilize, let alone increase.

2. In addition to the unsold inventory, there is the “shadow inventory” of perhaps millions of homes owned by banks but kept off the market for fear of driving prices down even lower…but, eventually, they do have to be sold.

The ripple effects on the economy of this are quite large – think about it: how often do any of you out there buy a new ‘fridge, washer/dryer or other major household item? About once in 10 to 15 years – unless you buy a new home, in which case the desire is to have a whole slate of new things to put in the new home. Slower sales of new and existing homes means less demand for such high value, durable goods…thus impacting manufacturing. And on and on it goes – don’t have a new home, don’t need a new landscape; don’t have home equity, can’t afford that addition or swimming pool…etc, etc, etc. With housing back in to the dumpster, it will only take a small, additional shock to the economy to tumble us right back in to recession.

Oh, did I mention that gasoline prices are more than $3 a gallon and headed higher?

Seems a possibility for 2012:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the strong favorite among Republican voters to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in 2012, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows.

Tom Jensen, director of the Democratic-leaning polling firm, said the findings — 72 percent of GOP voters chose Bush as their preferred candidate — differ from other state surveys in which voters have “no clue” whom they want to challenge the Democratic incumbent…

Meanwhile, this poll shows that Nelson bests all possible GOP challengers – expect Jeb Bush. This is a long way out from election day and lots can change, but it is a strong indicator that if Jeb decides to run, he’ll have a good shot of winning…both the GOP nomination and the general election.

I’ve always liked Jeb Bush – and even voted for him, once; during his losing bid for Florida governor in 1994 (I was still living out there, at the time). He’s more of a true-blue conservative than his brother, W and thus would be a good fit for the increasingly conservative GOP Senate caucus. He would also bring to that body a wealth of practical, executive experience – being governor of Florida for 8 years, he can tell the Senators just what a proposed law will do in effect, as opposed to theory.

Finally, it would usefully annoy the liberals to have a Bush in DC, wielding power. They tend to get extra crazy when a Bush is around and that gets entertaining…and we can all use some amusement these days.

From Catholic Culture:

The University of Illinois has offered to reinstate a Catholic faculty member who was dismissed after he explained Church teachings on homosexuality.

University officials announced that they would welcome Kenneth Howell back to campus as an adjunct professor, to teach a course on Catholicism. His faculty appointment had been terminated after he was accused of “hate speech,” for sending an email to a student in which, responding to the student’s question, he accurately summarized the Church’s teachings…

It did take the threat of a lawsuit to get action here, which is rather sad…but not as sad as the fact of the professors firing, in the first place. Here was a man teaching a course on Catholicism during which he explained a Catholic belief and he gets fired for alleged “hate speech”!. For goodness sakes, didn’t anyone at the University think for a moment how stupid it would look to fire someone over this?

But, just another battle in the war against Christianity – and, indeed, the war against all things decent and rational. This is yet another example of why we can’t call a truce in social issues – the other side will never agree to a truce. In large matters and small, they are forever trying to advance their agenda…and if it weren’t for people standing up for this professor, he would have remained fired…and even though he’s being reinstated, the fact remains that his firing casts a pall over academic freedom. All professors will think twice about what they say for fear of running afoul of our campus fascists.

We must fight until there is a distinct roll back of the left – until, that is, people can feel confident of speaking their minds on whatever subject without fear of reprisal. Only when that feeling becomes general in all aspects of American life can we say that there is room for a truce in social issues.

Seems that some people are willing to do so – even without a replacement job lined up. Business Insider has a survey which indicates a willingness by people to bail out on a job without much thought to consequences. All of us know the rule – never quit you job until you have another one lined up. But that rule is fading, fast, it would seem.

It is, though, a rule I’m still following. I pretty much despise my employer and get the distinct sense, when I go to work, that I’m working for the enemy. Just another faceless, mindless corporate blob run by people who haven’t the foggiest notion of what they’re doing (and, of course, they think they do know what they’re doing…and that just makes it worse). The only thing I can imagine being worse than working for Big Corporation would be to work for Big Government. I’ve got an iron in the fire to get out of it and I hope that 2011 will be the last year in which I work for Big Corporation. But, won’t quit until I’ve got something fairly secure lined up as an alternative.

But the survey linked above indicates that attitudes about this are changing. Why? I figure its two reasons:

1. Often you can obtain an ok living just by getting yourself on the varied government programs available for unemployed people. $300 a week in unemployment plus $350 month from food stamps coupled with various programs to subsidize your utilities and you can skate along for quite a while without having to lift a finger. I’m not saying it is wealthy, care free life…but for some people, it does beat the 9-5 grind.

2. Its hard to drive yourself to perform for idiots doing work which has no real point to it. A lot of work in modern America is just that – it might be financially rewarding, but you don’t produce anything and you don’t feel like at the end of the day you accomplished something. If you worked in mining you could measure how much ore you extracted; in manufacturing, how many items made; in farming, how many acres plowed…but working as a financial analyst churning out financial stats that no one will ever really read? Where’s the job satisfaction in that? Couple that with the knowledge that the people on top, who do no real work, are reaping vast sums while you might be lucky to get a 3% raise, and its easy to head for the door.

We live in a very sick society. Only part of us are well – those who do produce useful goods and services, day by day. Those who serve in our armed forces. Police and firefighters – the better part of the teachers, too. But probably a majority of us are infected by the sterile, pointless and ultimately soul-destroying modern way of living. We really need to change – back to a society which does useful work; back to a society which honors hard work, thrift and sobriety. We need, to put it in a nutshell, a revival of a human civilization.

Your tax dollars at work, Americans: the Financial Times is reporting that some of the world’s strongest banks have used the TAF since 2008 and, overall, more than half the money used was used by foreign banks.

More and more it becomes inescapable that first President Bush and then President Obama were snookered by the global financial industry – led by their American stooge, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke – in to using the wealth of the American people to bail out banks which made stupid loans and investments. This wasn’t about saving the economy, it was about saving the banksters from the results of their folly. Don’t let anyone get you partisan over this – we were conned in a bi-partisan manner in to helping not just the rich stay rich, but the very stupidest among the rich to stay rich.

Turn off the spigot – no more money for any bank, any where, save to cover accounts insured by the FDIC. Everyone else can just go jump in a lake or, more accurately, in to bankruptcy court.

From Rasmussen:

For the second time this month, 60% of Likely Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the national health care law, while the number who expect health care costs to increase is at its highest level since August…

Of course, we can’t repeal – not while Reid holds the Senate (he wouldn’t allow a repeal to come to a vote, because it would pass), and certainly not while Obama is President as he’d just veto such legislation. But this does show that the GOP can gut the worst provisions of ObamaCare without risking voter ire – we can de-fund ObamaCare while leaving it on the books, hopefully as a dead letter.

And, once we elect a Republican President, we can then go on to repeal.

UPDATE: A bit about the bureaucratic implementation of the “death panels”. With 2,700 pages of law, a bureaucrat can find whatever he wants in there…repeal and replace is the only rational way to deal with ObamaCare in the long run.

Allahpundit over at Hot Air has an excellent run down on the rumor mill over this.

My take: If Hillary leaves the Administration prior to February, then its because she’s looking to a possible primary challenge to Obama in 2012.

Its not that she’d announce it as she left. She’ll leave, if she does, in fog of love-fest between herself and Obama with congratulatory speeches and everything being done to assure everyone that all is well and Hillary just feels its time for someone else to take the helm now that she’s got everything reset in American foreign policy. After she leaves, though, she waits, watches and carefully cultivates political allies as she sees how things go for Obama in 2011.

More than likely, there will be no primary challenger to Obama in 2012. Obama is a prohibitive favorite for re-nomination and, actually, must be favored to be re-elected in 2012, as well (as Barone points out). But Obama is balanced on a knife edge here – just a little more loss of support, and the wolves will start to howl.

And that is what Hillary will be looking for – polling data, economic data and just a general sense of frustration which indicates that Obama is a sure-loser in 2012. If the economy slips back in to full blown recession, then Obama is likely toast…but he could also be toasted just fine by unemployment remaining stubbornly high through 2011. Obama might score some points by playing rope-a-dope with the House GOP…but the House GOP might rope-a-dope Obama, as well (Obama is only considered smart by people who adore him…everyone not blinded by the Obama glow is starting to figure out that there’s just not much behind the teleprompter). If it is late summer of 2011 and Obama is on the rocks, that is when one must start to sniff around to see if anyone is crawling out of the wood work to challenge Obama. Hillary showing up in Iowa would be a confirmation of any challenge rumors…no matter what reason she ostensibly goes there for.

We’ll have to wait and see how this all comes out – but it could be a very fun election year in 2012.