Hard to argue with the commenter below, after watching this video: (not safe for work or for sensitive ears)



From the comments:

Every time I see an Occupy-related video, I see a strengthening case for the draft. This is coming from someone who considers himself a libertarian, so I'm amazed at what I'm saying. I imagine civilian life would suddenly look pretty darned good from inside a barracks. Maybe if growing up doesn't occur naturally, it should get an institutional jump-start.

81 years ago on this date in 1931, Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks was born in Dallas, TX; it should be a national holiday.

January 31 ...

In 1606 Guy Fawkes was executed after being convicted for his role in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I. In 1797 Franz Shubert was born just outside of Vienna, Austria, in a town called Himmelpfortgrund. In 1865 Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. The amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. In 1876 the United States ordered all Native Americans to move into reservations. In 1902 actress Tallulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, AL. In 1919 Brooklyn Dodger Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play in the Major Leagues, was born in Cairo, GA. In 1923 author and pompous ass extraordinaire Norman Mailer was born in Long Branch, NJ. In 1929 the USSR exiled Leon Trotsky. He found asylum in Mexico, where he was later murdered. In 1931 Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks was born in Dallas, TX; it should be a national holiday. In 1940 the very first monthly Social Security retirement check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, VT. In 1947 Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan was born in Refugio, TX. In 1958 Explorer I was put into orbit around the earth. It was the first US earth satellite. In 1971 astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell, and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon. In 2003 the Mars rover Opportunity rolled off its landing pad onto the surface of Mars. In 2006 Samuel A. Alito Jr. was sworn in as the 110th US Supreme Court Justice.

A friend sent along this 2011 headline, and peering into his crystal ball, wrote, "It'll be hard for us to find a 2012 headline that tops this one!"

Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead in a Badger Den in Wales.

Economist Don Boudreaux remains in so many ways an antidote to economic policy foolishness.

In response to Paul Krugman's New York Times column today, Boudreaux writes:

... Paul Krugman blames Britain's economic woes on the British government's alleged policy of "austerity." Yet he offers no evidence that Her Majesty's government is actually pursuing such a policy.

Fortunately, Scott Sumner checked some relevant facts. From data on the 44 major world economies listed in The Economist's "Economic and Financial indicators" section, we learn that only two governments had 2011 budget deficits larger (as a percentage of GDP) than Britain's: Egypt and Greece.

As for actual spending amounts, I logged a few minutes on the Internet to discover that British-government spending -- adjusted for inflation -- has risen every year since the start of the financial crisis. This spending in 2011 was 16 percent higher than it was in 2007, and is projected to be even higher in 2012.

I guess it all depends on what the meaning of 'austerity' is.

The hypocrisy is so ridiculous, it is laughable.

John Rubino: (italics in original, bold print added)

... even after a massive tax increase Illinois is looking at a half a billion dollar deficit. That actually sounds manageable in the scheme of things -- not even a billion dollars, chump change in this inflation-ravaged world. But the annual deficit is less of a threat than all those accumulated liabilities: "Looking at the bigger picture, the state has a backlog of about $8.5 billion in unpaid bills and owes about $27 billion in outstanding bonds. And then there's the roughly $80 billion owed to the state's public employee pension funds."

The reported deficit, in other words, doesn't include all the stuff that should have appeared in past budgets but was hidden in order to get through the next election. How a state with a constitutional mandate to balance its budget can do this in the first place -- and how an "unpaid bill" can be excluded from the annual budget -- is a question for future prosecutors. But for investors it's a clear sign that some sort of default is coming.

Why then would anyone buy an Illinois municipal bond, or accept a state contract that requires future payments, or move a business to the state, or keep a business in the state, or do anything else that required faith in the willingness or ability of the state to pay its bills? The only possible answer is that Illinois isn't Greece; it's Spain or Italy, an entity so big and important that its failure is inconceivable. When it hits the wall, Washington will have no choice but to step in and cover its unfunded pensions and teacher salaries and muni bond interest. In the same way that a Spanish bond is really a German bond because Germany has no choice but to make good on it, the big insolvent US states are wards of the central government.

The bottom line effect of all this stepping up and bailing out is to exchange a solvency/debt crisis for a currency crisis in which the markets at some point figure out that failed states are so numerous and their needs so great that the printing presses will never stop.

January 30 ...

In 1649 England's King Charles I was beheaded. In 1798 the first brawl in the US House occurred when Rep. Matthew Lyon (DR-VT) and Rep. Roger Griswold (F-CT) fought each other on the House floor after Lyon spat in Griswold's face. Lyon later served in the House from both Kentucky and Arkansas, and is the only person in history to represent three different states in the US House of Representatives. In 1815 President James Madison approved an act of Congress appropriating $23,950 to purchase Thomas Jefferson's library of 6,487 volumes in order to replace the Library of Congress, which was destroyed by the British during the War of 1812. In 1835 the first assassination attempt against a US president in history occurred when a mentally ill man named Richard Lawrence attempted to assassinate President Andrew Jackson in the United States Capitol. Both of Lawrence's pistols misfired, and a crowd including Rep. Davy Crockett subdued Lawrence. It is reported that Jackson assisted in subduing his attempted assassin, striking him several times with his cane. The prosecuting attorney at Lawrence's trial was Francis Scott Key. In 1862 the US Navy's first ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, was launched. In 1882 32nd president of the US Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, NY. In 1901 female Prohibitionists smashed 12 saloons in Kansas. In 1909 radical writer Saul Alinsky was born in Chicago, IL. In 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed German Chancellor by President von Hindenburg; on the same day, Hitler told the Reichstag that Germany was withdrawing its signature from the Versailles Treaty. Also on this day, the first episode of the Lone Ranger radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in Detroit. The program ran for 2,956 episodes and ended in 1955. In 1941 Vice President Dick Cheney was born in Lincoln, NE. In 1948 Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist. In 1964 the United States launched Ranger 6. The unmanned spacecraft carried television cameras and was intentionally crash-landed on the moon. The cameras did not return any pictures to Earth. In 1965 Winston Churchill's state funeral was held in London. In 1968 the Tet Offensive began as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals. In 1969 the Beatles played publicly for the last time at a free concert in London on the roof of their Apple corporate headquarters. In 1979 the civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who'd been living in exile in France, to return. In 1981 an estimated two million New Yorkers turned out for a ticker-tape parade honoring the freed American hostages from Iran. In 2004 Iraqis voted in their country's first free election in a half-century.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board argues, "Obama proposes to spend more money we don't have."

The Tribune continues:

In his State of the Union address, Obama was not so keen on preaching austerity. As part of his plan to create an economy that is "built to last," he said it's necessary to "pay down our debt and invest in our future."

The phrase "invest in our future," we regret to report, is Washington-speak for "spend money." And in the current fiscal context, that means "spend money we don't have."
...

The excuse that we are "investing" in the future has been used way too often to excuse fiscal bloat. The best investment in our future is to lighten the burdens that will fall on the taxpayers of tomorrow.

For that matter, the promise to "pay down our debt," which the president made twice in his address, is false. Republicans and Democrats are not arguing about how to pay down debt. They're arguing about how quickly or slowly we will continue to accumulate debt.

Obama says he wants to foster the long-term health of the economy. But it looks as though Washington's habit of living beyond its means is built to last.

January 29 ...

In 1737 Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England. In 1820 King George III of England died at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending a reign that began in 1760, including both the American and French revolutions. In 1839 Charles Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. In 1843 25th president of the US William McKinley was born in Niles, OH. In 1845 the New York Evening Mirror published Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven. In 1850 Senator Henry Clay introduced in the US Senate what would come to be known the Compromise of 1850, which included the admission of California into the Union as a free state. In 1860 short story writer and playwright Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia. In 1861 Kansas became the 34th state in the Union. In 1863 General Ulysses S Grant was named the Union's Commander of the Army of the West. In 1880 W.C. Fields was born in Darby, PA. In 1936 the first members of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame were inducted, including Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner. In 1956 H. L. Mencken died in Baltimore, MD. In 1963 poet Robert Frost died in Boston at age 88. In 2002 President Bush made his first State of the Union address, declaring that the "war against terror is only beginning." Bush also singled out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

The Better Govenment Association's Patrick Rehkamp reports: (emphasis added)

By the time [Wayne] Watson left his job as chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago in 2009, he had accrued around 500 unused sick days over his three-decade career with the community college system.

While many public and private employers have a "use-it-or-lose-it" policy on sick time, City Colleges converted Watson's unused days into cash -- a whopping $500,000 that's being paid to him in five annual increments, the Better Government Association has learned.

Watson, who now serves as president of Chicago State University, may be the largest recipient of sick-day payouts at City Colleges in recent years. What's more, the combination of his City Colleges sick-day payout, current salary from Chicago State and annual pension means Watson takes in nearly $500,000 annually in government payments.

But he's far from the only recipient of this taxpayer-funded largesse.

The college system owes about 140 former union and nonunion employees a collective $4.2 million in unused sick time, according to records provided by City Colleges to the BGA.
...

Meanwhile, at least 15 other former City Colleges administrators were owed $100,000 or more in sick-time payouts over the past decade or so, records show.

For example, Charles Guengerich, former president of Wilbur Wright College on the Northwest Side, is slated to receive $309,061 in sick time. Martin Faber, former executive director of business services at Richard J. Daley College on the Southwest Side, is expected to receive $216,973.

City Colleges has about 120,000 students at seven main campuses, and an annual budget of more than $650 million.

The graduation rate -- which charts students getting a two-year degree within three years -- was 8 percent this past year, [City Colleges Vice Chancellor Laurent] Pernot said.

205 years ago on this date in 1807, London's Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight.

Also on this date, 80 years ago in 1932, the Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai, China, in response to protests over Japanese military action in Manchuria; the Japanese later occupied Manchuria.

January 28 ...

In 1521 the Diet of Worms began, at which Protestant reformer Luther was declared an outlaw by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1547 England's King Henry VIII died at age 55. He was succeeded by his 9 year-old son, Edward VI. In 1561 the Edict of Orleans suspended the persecution of French Huguenots. In 1807 London's Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight. In 1851 Northwestern University was chartered. In 1855 the inventor of the first practical adding and listing machine, William Seward Burroughs, was born in Auburn, NY. In 1871 France surrendered in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1878 the first telephone switchboard was installed in New Haven, CT; the phone company that owned the switchboard had 21 subscribers. In 1887 Artur Rubinstein was born in Lodz, Poland. In 1912 abstract painter Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, WY. In 1916 Louis D. Brandeis was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Wilson; he was the Court's first Jewish member. In 1918 Leon Trotsky became leader of the Russian Communists. In 1932 the Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai, China, in response to protests over Japanese military action in Manchuria; the Japanese later occupied Manchuria. In 1935 Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion on medical-social grounds. In 1939 poet William Butler Yeats died in Menton, France. In 1958 Brooklyn Dodger's catcher Roy Campanella suffered a broken neck in an early morning auto accident on Long Island. In 1980 comedian Jimmy Durante died in New York City. In 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: Flight Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; Pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. In 2004 NFL Hall of Famer Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch died of natural causes at age 80.

What, no fainting?

From an actual photo in the New York Times:

From the Illinois Policy Institute:

Almost a year after Illinois' record income tax increase, the state's unemployment woes contrast starkly with the slow but positive national economic recovery. Unemployment rates in 46 states dropped since January 2011, and some dramatically. Illinois' unemployment rate, on the other hand, was 9.8 percent in December, up from 9 percent in January 2011. Simply put, Illinois placed more people on the unemployment rolls than any other state in the country.

On a related note, I was watching IL Gov. Pat Quinn on MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning and noted that Gov. Quinn talked of the state's 'investment in educational spending' being an important part of recovery. However, an examination of education spending in Illinois reveals that huge portions of overall spending, and majority portions of new education spending are going not to classroom spending, but to funding for teacher pensions.

How is that 'investment spending'?