Obama's College Roommate Speaks Out

By Wayne Allyn Root, June 6th, 2010

Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.

Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."

Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

National Anthem and Flag Protocol for Veterans

There has been some confusion about how to offer the proper respect to the United States of America flag and national anthem. The following, taken from military.com explains the proper protocol.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 contained an amendment to allow un-uniformed service members, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag.

A later amendment further authorized hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was included in the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed on Oct. 14, 2008.

Here is the actual text from the law:

SEC. 595. MILITARY SALUTE FOR THE FLAG DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM BY MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES NOT IN UNIFORM AND BY VETERANS.

Section 301(b)(1) of title 36, United States Code, is amended by striking subparagraphs (A) through (C) and inserting the following new subparagraphs:
(A) individuals in uniform should give the military salute at the first note of the anthem and maintain that position until the last note;
(B) members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute in the manner provided for individuals in uniform; and
(C) all other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart;

Note: Part (C) applies to those not in the military and non-veterans. The phrase "men not in uniform" refers to civil service uniforms like police, fire fighters, and letter carriers - non-veteran civil servants who might normally render a salute while in uniform.

The Threat of the Cordoba Mosque

With all the discussion about building the Cordoba mosque at the site of the Twin Tower murders, some things have been lost in the politically correct rhetoric commentary surrounding the issue. We, for one, want to go on record that the mosque is not an issue based on freedom of religion, speech, or any other right supposed to be enjoyed by an American citizen. It is a move by a religious sect, Islam, further the demise of Christianity and the defeat of the United States of America.

The erection of a Cordoba mosque anywhere is the erection of a victory monument in the name of Islam in its fight to control the world. The twin towers mosque will be a symbol of victory as strong as the Arch of Triumph in Paris, the Yorktown Victory Monument, The Perry’s Victory Monument at Put-In-Bay, all of which celebrate victories of epic proportions which changed the world. The proposed Cordoba mosque will celebrate the deaths of 2,995 who died at the hands of Muslim murders in the name of Islam.

Put the rhetoric aside and look at the facts. Feisal Abdul-Rauf, the Muslim front man for the building of the Cordoba mosque, is clear in his purpose for building it at Park Place. Feisal Abdul Rauf is indeed an adherent and promoter of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals and objectives. Any doubt to his Muslim Brotherhood connections are addressed by the excellent and timely report by Alyssa A. Lappen, which is required reading for factual insight into Abdul Rauf’s link to the Muslim brotherhood

A document, An Explanatory Memorandum, on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, which came forward during the trial of the United States vs. the Holy Land Foundation, lays it out pretty clearly. The objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is the conversion of the United States into an Islamic nation through sabotage and subterfuge. The memorandum describes the process of settlement as a civilization-Jihadist process, stating that the Ikhwan, Arabic for brothers, must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within” and “sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Clearly, according to this document, the objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is to convert the U.S. into an Islamic nation through sabotage and subterfuge. It is a handbook to achieve that end. The author painstakingly describes the process of “settlement,” among others, its meaning, and the methods to be employed. Point 17 of the document clearly illustrates that building Islamic centers equals building military “battalions,” points from which to stage the planned destruction of the West. “And what better place inside our front lines is there but within the perimeter of destruction at Ground Zero?”

This has nothing to do with civil rights. It has to do with the overthrow of the United States and abolishment of Christianity and Judaism. The building of a Cordoba mosque anywhere in the United States will create a training ground for Muslims to take away our freedom, liberty, and lives. Cordoba mosques are monuments to Islam, a religion of non-tolerance, a religion which even today stones dissidents to death, a religion which massacres Christians out of hand. Islam teaches Muslims to kill for the sake of Allah.

Do all Muslims agree with the fanatical leaders of Islam? Only they know with in their hearts. Do they all agree with the victory mosque to be built at the site of the Twin Tower murders? Only they know. But one thing is certain. No matter what religion, organization, country, or group one professes, to belong is to follow the dictates of the leaders. To belong is to believe the principles of the group are correct and should be obeyed.

To accept building a Cordoba Victory Mosque and Muslim terrorist training center in any location in the United States is against all logic. Has our government lost all sense of reality? Or have we not yet discovered the reality that our government has become part of an Islamic take-over of the United States of America?

The Tea Parties and the Future of Liberty

Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Within a month he signed a $787 billion “stimulus package” with virtually no Republican support. It was necessary, we were told, to keep unemployment under eight percent. Overnight, the federal government had, as one of its highest priorities, weatherizing government buildings and housing projects. Streets and highways in no need of repair would be broken up and repaved. The Department of Transportation and other government agencies would spend millions on signs advertising the supposed benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I saw one of them on Roosevelt Island in Washington, D.C. It boasted that the federal park would be receiving a generous grant to facilitate the involvement of local youth in the removal of “non-indigenous plants.” In other words, kids would be weeding. We need a sign to announce that? And this was going to save the economy?

Then there was American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project number 1R01AA01658001A, a study entitled: “Malt Liquor and Marijuana: Factors in their Concurrent Versus Separate Use.” I’m not making this up. This is a $400,000 project being directed by a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The following is from the official abstract: “We appreciate the opportunity to refocus this application to achieve a single important aim related to our understanding of young adults’ use of male [sic] liquor (ML), other alcoholic beverages, and marijuana (MJ), all of which confer high risks for experiencing negative consequences, including addiction. As we have noted, reviews of this grant application have noted numerous strength [sic], which are summarized below.”

So what were those strengths? “This research team has previous [sic] been successful in recruiting a large (>600) sample of regular ML drinkers.” Also, “the application is well-written.” Well-written? With three spelling mistakes? But who am I to judge? As for the other strength, there is no question that the team’s recruitment had been strong. But is that really a qualification for federal money? After all, they were paying people to drink beer!

These same scholars were behind a groundbreaking 2007 study that used regression analysis to discover that subjects who got drunk and high were more intoxicated than those who only abused alcohol. The new study pays these pot-smoking malt-liquor drinkers at least $45 to participate. They can buy four beers per day for the three-week project—all of it funded, at least indirectly, by the American taxpayer.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when President Obama visited Buffalo in May, he chose to highlight other stimulus grants. On the other hand, he could have pointed out that the beer money goes right back into the economy. Think of all those saved or created jobs! In any case, the findings of this new study are expected to echo those of the first study, which found: “Those who concurrently use both alcohol and marijuana are more likely to report negative consequences of substance use compared with those who use alcohol only.” Reading results like this, I tend to think that those who concurrently get drunk and high are also far more likely to believe the stimulus is working.

And have I mentioned that the estimated cost of the stimulus was later increased from $787 billion to $862 billion? That’s a cost underestimate of nearly ten percent. Anyone in private business who suddenly had to come up with ten percent more in outgoing funds than previously anticipated would likely go out of business.

All of this set the stage for a revolt. The accidental founding of the Tea Party movement took place in February 2009, when CNBC commentator Rick Santelli let loose a rant against the stimulus package, and in particular the proposal to subsidize what he called “the losers’ mortgages.” He proposed a ceremonial dump of derivative securities into Lake Michigan, and a few hours later a website popped up calling for a Chicago Tea Party. The video clip raced around the Internet, and it was soon clear that many average Americans were furious about the massive new spending bill and the plan to subsidize bad mortgages.

The stimulus was bad, but by itself it was probably not enough to sustain an entire movement. This is why the larger context matters: Under President Obama, federal spending has been growing at an unprecedented pace. We are adding $4.8 billion to the national debt every day. The long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security isn’t merely uncertain—as so many analysts would have us believe. In fact, their failure is a sure thing without structural changes. By adding a massive new entitlement with the health care bill, we are simply going to go broke faster. Americans understood much of this even before Mr. Obama was elected.

Consider this story from the recent presidential campaign: In July 2008, Republican nominee John McCain stopped in Belleville, Michigan, to par-ticipate in a town hall. After several friendly questions, he took one from Rich Keenan. Wearing a shirt with an American flag embroidered over his left breast, Keenan told McCain that he would not be voting for Obama. But then he said: “What I’m trying to do is get to a situation where I’m excited about voting for you.”

The audience laughed, and many in the crowd nodded their heads. Keenan explained that he was “concerned” about some of McCain’s views, such as his opposition to the Bush tax cuts and his views on the environment. Keenan allowed that he was grateful that McCain had begun taking more conservative positions. But he concluded: “I guess the question I have, and that people like me in this country have, is what can you say to us to make us believe that you actually came to the right positions? We want to take you to the dance, we’re just concerned about who you’re going to go home with.” The audience laughed again. McCain laughed, too, but then he grew serious: “I have to say, and I don’t mean to disappoint you, but I haven’t changed positions.” He defended his vote against the Bush tax cuts and, at some length, reiterated his concerns about global warming. Later, he went out of his way to emphasize his respect for Hillary Clinton and boast about his work with Joe Lieberman, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.

I talked with Rich Keenan after the town hall. He described himself as a conservative independent. He said he often votes Republican but does not consider himself one. He added, “I do think that there are millions of Americans out there like me who are fairly conservative, probably more conservative than John McCain, and I think a lot of them are concerned about what’s going to happen if he does get elected.” Keenan was right. There were millions of people out there like him—conservatives, independents, disaffected Republicans, and many of them stayed home on election day. These people form the heart of the Tea Party movement.

In recent years, the Republican Party has seen its approval levels sink to new lows. In 2005, 33 percent of registered voters told Gallup they considered themselves Republican. By 2009, that number was 27 percent. The number of voters who identified themselves as independent showed a corresponding rise. But what’s interesting is that over that same time-frame, the number of voters self-identified as conservative stayed relatively constant: 39 percent in 2005 and 40 percent in 2009. (Self-identified liberals constituted 20 percent of respondents in both 2005 and 2009.) So even as the number of self-identified Republicans declined and the number of self-identified independents grew, the number of self-identified conservatives was constant. Of course, it’s too simple to postulate a one-for-one swap, but the trend seems clear. The Tea Party movement arose in an environment in which a growing number of Americans believed neither party was voicing its concerns.

All of this has liberals in the mainstream media and elsewhere flummoxed. At first they were dismissive. Think of the footage of Susan Roesgen of CNN going after Tea Party enthusiasts at a Chicago rally, suggesting they were irrational and stupid. And consider a few of the many other examples:

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote: “The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction—the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day—and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies—is calibrated not to inform but to incite.”

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz said: “I believe that the Tea Partiers are misguided. I think they are racist, for the most part. I think that they are afraid. I think that they are clinging to their guns and their religion. And I think in many respects, they are what’s wrong with America.”

Actress Janeane Garofalo: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. These are nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks.”

Comedian Bill Maher: “The teabaggers, they’re not a movement, they’re a cult.”

Perhaps the most stunning comment came from prominent Democratic strategist Steve McMahon: “The reason people walk into schools and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and because of attitudes like this. The reason people walk into military bases and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and attitudes like this. Really, what they’re doing is not that much different than what Osama bin Laden is doing in recruiting people and encouraging them to hate America.”

We’ve seen this before. On November 7, 1994, the Washington Post ran an article about the loud, hateful fringe on the right: “Hate seems to be drifting through the air like smoke from autumn bonfires. It isn’t something that can be quantified. No one can measure whether it has grown since last year, the 1980s, or the 1880s. But a number of people who make their living taking the public’s temperature are convinced it’s swelling beyond the perennial level of bad manners and random insanity. It’s fueled, they say, by such forces as increasingly harsh political rhetoric, talk radio transmissions, and an increasing sense of not-so-quiet desperation.” The next day, Republicans took Congress.

Are today’s Tea Party supporters on the radical fringe? In a National Review/McLaughlin Associates poll conducted in February, six percent of 1,000 likely voters said that they had participated in a Tea Party rally. An additional 47 percent said they generally agree with the reasons for those protests. Nor is the Tea Party movement “monochromatic” and “all white,” as Chris Matthews claimed. Quite the contrary: the National Review poll found that it was five percent black and 11 percent Hispanic.

Perhaps that poll could be dismissed as the work of a right-leaning polling firm and a conservative magazine. You can’t say that about the New York Times and CBS. Their poll, which has a long history of oversampling Democrats, found that Tea Partiers are wealthier and better educated than average voters. It also found that 20 percent of Americans—one in five—supports Tea Parties. That’s an awfully big fringe.

Other polls confirmed these findings: a Washington Post/ABC poll found that 14 percent of voters say the Tea Party is “most in synch” with their values; 20 percent say Tea Parties are “most in tune with economic problems Americans are now facing.” The most interesting poll, in my view, came from TargetPoint Consulting, which interviewed nearly 500 attendees at the April 15, 2010, Tax Day rally in Washington, D.C. Here are some results:

Tea Partiers are united on the issues of debt, the growth of government, and health care reform.

They are socially conservative on the one hand and libertarian on the other, split roughly down the middle.

They are older, more educated, and more conservative than average voters, and they are “distinctly not Democrat.”

This new information complicated the mainstream media’s narrative about the Tea Party movement. This was not a fringe. Nancy Pelosi, who had earlier dismissed Tea Parties as “Astroturf”—meaning fake grassroots activism—revised that assessment, telling reporters that, in fact, she was just like the Tea Partiers.

This brings us to the present day. The president’s approval ratings are low, and Congressional Democrats’ are even worse. Members of the president’s party are not only running away from him in swing districts, but even in some relatively safe ones. Many analysts are suggesting that control of the House of Representatives is in play, and perhaps even that of the Senate.

This dissatisfaction flows directly from the president’s policies and those of his party. It is not simply “anti-incumbent,” as many of my press colleagues would have it. This voter outrage—and it is outrage, not hate—is specific and focused: Americans are fed up with big government and deeply concerned about the long-term economic health of their country. The stimulus was unpopular, and most Americans do not believe it’s working. Obama’s health care plan was unpopular when it passed. The American people understood the rather obvious point that it wouldn’t be possible to cover 30 million additional people, improve the care of those with insurance, and save taxpayers money, all at the same time.

Does all of this add up to big Republican gains in November? Not according to the mainstream media. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan recently wrote: “The Tea Party movement is energizing elements of the Republican Party and fanning an anti-Washington fervor, but the biggest beneficiaries in the mid-term elections, pollsters and political analysts say, could be the main target of their anger: Democrats.” CBS News reported the same thing just a few days later. What nonsense! I think there is little question that the Tea Parties—and the enthusiasm and energy they bring—will contribute to major Republican gains in November.

One final point: For many Tea Partiers, the massive and unconstitutional growth of government is the fundamental issue. But I think there’s something deeper, too. After her husband had won several primaries in a row in the spring of 2008, Michelle Obama proclaimed that for the first time in her life she was proud of her country. It was a stunning statement. It also foreshadowed what was to come: Since Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he has devoted much of his time to criticizing his own country. He apologizes for the policy decisions of his predecessors. He worries aloud that the U.S. has become too powerful. He has explicitly rejected the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

And this is not mere rhetoric. For the first time ever, the U.S. is participating in the Universal Periodic Review—a United Nations initiative in which member countries investigate their own nation’s human rights abuses. The State Department has held ten “listening sessions” around the U.S. during which an alphabet soup of left-wing groups aired their numerous grievances. These complaints are to be included in a report that the U.S. will submit to the United Nations Human Rights Council. It will be evaluated by such paragons of human rights as Burkina Faso, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, and Cuba.

When President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2009, he declared that a world order that elevates one country or group of countries over others is bound to fail. So he’s changing that order. If his domestic policy priority is the redistribution of wealth, his foreign policy priority seems to be the redistribution of power.

Most Americans don’t agree with the president’s priorities. And many of these Americans are now active in the Tea Party movement, a movement that has succeeded in starting a serious national conversation about a return to limited government.

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(The preceeding was adapted from a speech delivered on June 6, 2010,by Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.)

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

Obituary of Robert Snyder, Jr.

ROBERT SNYDER Jr.

Robert W. Snyder, Jr. 1947 ~ 2010 Bob left us on June 19th after a day of doing what he loved, sailing the BJ at Soldier Creek with good friends and family. Bob was born September 2, 1947, at Mitchel Field AFB, in New York, the only son of Charlotte and Robert Snyder. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he married Connie and they began their life together in Denver. After a few years in Denver, the couple moved to Minneapolis where their son Michael was born in 1970. After a brief stay living in San Francisco they finally made their home in Utah where they raised their son and enjoyed many friends and family. Bob is survived by his wife, Connie, son, Mike (Wendy), granddaughter, Bailey, and sisters, Jean Allstun and Carol (Gary) Davis. Bob lived his life to the fullest and always found a way to have a good time. He had a way of making friends with everyone he met and will be missed by all who knew him. Services will be held Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 11:00 a.m. at Camp Williams, 17111 S. Camp Williams Road (Redwood Rd), Bluffdale, Utah. Family and close friends are welcome from 10:00 - 10:45 a.m. prior to the service. Arrangements in care of Olpin-Hoopes Funeral Home. Condolences may be sent to the family online at: www.olpinhoopes.com. In lieu of flowers and in memory of Bob's humorous outlook on life, please feel free to make contributions to whoever may be running against Obama in 2012.

Published in Salt Lake Tribune from June 23 to June 24, 2010

Financial Crisis Solution Is Return To Basics

The Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint-stock company founded in London by well-connected Puritans who kept careful records, foreshadowed “the Great engine” companies – blue-chip manufacturers that prospered into the mid-20th century (think General Electric, Procter and Gamble, U.S. Steel, and the Pennsylvania Railroad). The New England settlement would cost the Bay Company the equivalent of $40 million in today’s dollars, but by 1640 the company sent 200 ships and 14,000 settlers to Massachusetts

Led by John Winthrop, the expedition established business and management principles that persisted in early American commerce: careful planning, a disregard for social class in selecting management, an ethic of work combined with a habit of thrift, placing the good of the community above the individual, and a desire to create a kingdom of heaven on earth. “Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are upon us, soe that if wee shall deale falsely with out god in this worke…wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world,” Winthrop told his company. His son would build the first factory in America – a blast furnace – and those principles would launch economic growth through the Industrial Revolution and beyond.

Cotton Mather would one day comment that Puritan “religion begot prosperity and the daughter had destroyed the mother,” but the core principles of Puritan commerce persisted well beyond the first generation of Americans and extended to other parts of the world, particularly Asia. A 1917 plaque at the Newport News shipyard is an example: “We shall build good ships here, at a profit if we can – at a loss if we must – but always good ships.” Civilian leaders in occupied Japan used the slogan to train post-war electronics workers; one went so far as to help clean the offices of a dirty but promising firm working then with less than $600 in capital and in old army huts where staff members held umbrellas over their desks in a rainstorm. The puritanical lesson paid off; the company went on to become Sony.

What changed? American business lost sight of the principles underwriting its success, beginning most noticeably in the 1950s and climaxing in 1970 – the year Pennsylvania Railroad declared bankruptcy. Specifically management turned from bottom-up practices to top-down and the “Cult of the (so called) Expert” took over not only the nation’s boardrooms but its business schools. “Management experts” replaced execs with experience on the factory floor. Numbers mattered more than product and quality. One of the new conglomerates acquired the Newport News shipyard in 1969, and had its famous plaque moved to the Mariner’s Museum (It was returned after Northrop Grumman acquired the shipyard in 1986). And mid-century gurus like novelist Ayn Rand – whose hero in Atlas Shrugged declared, “I will never live for the sake of another man” – replaced altruistic business leaders.

As one result, U.S. productivity, which grew at an average yearly rate of 2.2 percent from 1870 to 1970, dropped to 1.1 percent from 1971-1995 – the lowest productivity growth of all advanced industrial nations.

How have Americans survived the productivity slowdown? They borrowed. “Credit is to the economy what steroids are to athletes; it enhances performance but, unless used in moderation, at a serious cost to the economic health of the nation.”

And that brings the us to the current financial crisis, which they trace to “profligate lending” and bad economic policies. Longtime Fed chief Alan Greenspan (an Ayn Rand devotee) comes in for particular criticism: Believing that the proper role of the central bank was to ‘take away the punchbowl when the party is getting good,’ Greenspan and his colleagues did exactly the opposite, adding gin, then vodka, and finally a line of cocaine to the bowl. The result has been catastrophic.”

But catastrophe is what it may take to concentrate the mind of American business, these authors suggest, and to propel U.S. management – both private and public sector – to take a fresh look at its Puritan roots.

(Editor's Note: This article is based on a review by Mindy Belz of World, a magazine published out of Asheville, N.C., of the latest book by two British authors, Kenneth and William Hopper. Their book, "The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos" is published by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. and is available through local booksellers. Original publication of Ms. Betz's review, "Citty upon a hill", was published July 3, 2010.)

Traffic Cameras Come To New Philadelphia

Yesterday, Sunday, we received a number of phone calls, and an E-mail, about the installation of cameras which have been placed on the poles at the intersection of South Broadway and Mill Avenue, SE., the intersection on which the New Philadelphia Buehler’s is located. A couple of phone calls later, and here is the straight dope on what is happening. We called Greg Popham, New Philadelphia’s Safety Director, and Fred Neff, the New Philadelphia Street Department Superintendent, both of whom were most cooperative and informative.

Right off the top, those “cameras” are not really cameras in the true sense of the terminology. They are more sensors than anything else. The city traffic light system is based, in simplest terms, on a sensors which count the number of vehicles passing through intersections which have a high traffic volume. Through the use of computers, these traffic counts determine how often the traffic lights change from red to green, based on the traffic flow at any given time. The busy intersections have sensors imbedded in the asphalt. You can see where they are as they appear as rectangular shaped outlines on the asphalt just before the traffic lights. As cars pass over these sensors, the computers figure the traffic flow and adjust when the lights should change to provide the most efficient traffic flow through that light and preventing long delays at the light. The computer also determines if the left hand turn signal should be used, again depending on the amount of traffic wanting to turn left in comparison to oncoming traffic wanting to go straight ahead. The system works well.

One problem, however. The sensor wires in the pavement have a tendency to break. These breaks come from many causes, street repairs, pavement shifts, water freezing in the winter and breaking the line, to mention a few. The new system takes care of this problem. Called Advanced Detection Cameras, the cameras make the same calculations as the sensors in the asphalt do with the exception that they are not effected by the breakage problems experienced by the buried sensor wires. Being located in the positions they are, and constructed as they are, maintenance costs will be lowered and efficiency will be increased.

Current maintenance costs to repair buried sensor failure averages $1,500 per repair. The Advanced Detection Camera system will not require the frequency of repair of the current system and cost savings should be substantial.

Oh, yes. The “cameras” do not have the ability to take pictures to be used in traffic violations. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. There could be some value to having some New Philadelphia drivers think Big Brother is watching them running the red lights.

The installation of the new sensor system at the intersection of South Broadway and Mill Avenue, SE., is the first of two, the other being at West High Avenue and Bluebell Drive, SW.

New Philadelphia Budget Mirrors Federal Depression

It doesn’t matter how you cut it, the bad times we are in are getting worse. It is easy to listen to the propaganda coming from Washington and being parroted by the news media. After all, everybody likes good news. But the truth is too often ignored. The hard facts are we have increased unemployment, lack of business investment, and a collapsing economy. Investors Business Daily (IBD), in an article of August 6, sums it up. To quote, “As the ‘recovery summer’ turns into a nightmare, one thing has become painfully clear: This is the most economically incompetent administration since the Great Depression.”

Obama administration spokeswoman, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, reported that the economy had turned around because of Obama’s "strong and immediate action". The only problem, she said, was Republicans who refuse to support a $26 billion bailout for state and local governments and their pampered unions. Shortly thereafter Solis resigned and went back to teaching. Why? One can only suspect that the truth became too much for her to bear.

According to IBD, America has lost 4.1 million jobs since Obama took office and 7.7 million since the recession began in December 2007. So most of the jobs lost have been under this administration.

Doing more arithmetic, since the start of 2010 we've averaged 93,000 new jobs a month. That's below the 120,000 we need just to soak up new job-market entrants. At this rate, it will take nearly seven years just to get back to 2007's number of jobs.

The country is in a depression. Unemployment is increasing. New jobs are not even coming close to the number of young people seeking employment, with 27,000 more new applicants a month entering the job market than there are new jobs available. Add to that Friday's jobs report indicated that unemployment in July was unchanged at 9.5%, but a net 131,000 jobs were lost on top of 97,000 more than first accounted for in May and June. And because of new tax laws, businesses are not making investments as they normally would.

Don't believe it? Listen to what key U.S. business groups said Friday after July's disastrous jobs data were released.

"The current rate of employment is too slow to replace the more than 8 million jobs lost in the recession — not in the next year or two, perhaps even not in the next five years," said Bart Van Ark, chief economist of the Conference Board.

"Policies that have increased taxes, increased regulation and increased uncertainty have clearly not been a prescription for returning America to work," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the Chamber of Commerce. That about sums it up.

New Philadelphia is deeply affected by the state of the United States economy. Without jobs, taxes collected by the City are lower. Without business expansion, jobs will not increase. Business expansion, including the New Philadelphia area, is close to nil.

While the City Administration and City Council have no control over the federal economy, they do have control over how City funds are appropriated and spent. It doesn’t matter if you talk of trillions of dollars spent by the Democratic controlled Congress and the Obama administration, the out of work family, of the City of New Philadelphia, the problem is the same. If you don’t have the money to pay the bills, you’re going to be in trouble.

New Philadelphia is close to financial disaster. City revenues are down with no relief in sight. But expenditures are on the increase. In three months employee contracts will be reopened with money as the major issue. But with both the City Council and Administration, money management seems to be at the bottom of the priority list. Planning for the financial future of the city is non-existent. The major concern of the Council President appears to be creating a solution to solve the complaints of Administrative personnel about salaries and benefits. The Mayor, at the same time, is contemplating the hiring of a Human Resources Director, a position which on the average pays $80,000 a year not including benefits.

The City of New Philadelphia should have as its first priority the future of the City. It is time that efforts to cut back on expenses. It will take hard work on the part of the Administration, City Council, and city employees, to produce a viable financial plan which will carry New Philadelphia through the next eight to ten years of financial difficulties. Continuing as we are, without an economic plan, without sacrifice on the part of city employees equal to the sacrifice being made by the New Philadelphia citizen in these poor economic times, New Philadelphia will face the choice of reduced services due to layoffs of city employees, increased taxes, or both, and a devastated economy as people leave the city to seek employment elsewhere.

Mr. Mayor, Council Members, appointed Administrative personnel, face the facts. We are in trouble and it is your responsibility to solve our economic problems. Empty promises, pandering to city employees, decisions based on party and other affiliations, passing legislation without appropriate research into cost, should no longer be acceptable. By accepting the positions you actively pursued you also accepted the responsibility to put the City and its residents above your personal ambitions. Now is the time for you to accept that responsibility.

(Excerpts for this article came from, and with permission, of the Investors Business Daily editorial The Propaganda Of Incompetents.)

Navy Seals Acquitted

Just in case you missed it, the trials of Matthew McCabe, Johnathan Keefe, and Julio Huertas were concluded two months ago and all three were found innocent of the charges involving mistreatment of the Muslim terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed. These three SEALs were falsely accused of punching Abed in the stomach while he was in US custody. If you want further details on the charges these SEALs check the blog for March 24, 2010, "Will Obama Sacrifice SEAL Heroes?" That they were ever brought to trial is still a disgrace, but at last they have been vindicated.

It is interesting to note that the first of the year the news media was filled with the fact that these three men were to be tried for abusing a terrorist prisoner, but their acquittals were hardly mentioned. For details of the trials of Matthew McCabe, Johnathan Keefe, and Julio Huertas, Google their names. You may find the whole incident revealing of current government thinking as concerns our defense and the military men who are on the front line protecting our country.