All posts by Wintery Knight

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News

Obama’s naive foreign policy increases likelihood of war in Middle East

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The Wall Street Journal explains.

Excerpt:

Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?

The article lists various elements of Obama’s weak stance against Iran, then continues:

[…]All this only helps persuade Israel’s skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran “unacceptable,” he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama’s decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and by Russia’s announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.

In sum, the conclusion among Israelis is that the Obama administration won’t lift a finger to stop Iran, much less will the “international community.” So Israel has pursued a different strategy, in effect seeking to goad the U.S. into stopping, or at least delaying, an Israeli attack by imposing stiff sanctions and perhaps even launching military strikes of its own.

How do you think Iran would respond to such an air strike? Their entire land force would be left largely intact. Do you think they are just going to take that and do nothing to retaliate? This is a nightmare.

News

Obama’s naive trade policy angers Canada, China, France, Mexico, etc.

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The economic effects of massive government waste and naive protectionism
The economic effects of massive government waste and naive protectionism

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

The Wall Street Journal explains the high costs of economic ignorance.

Excerpt:

The smell of trade war is suddenly in the air. Mr. Obama slapped a 35% tariff on Chinese tires Friday night, and China responded on the weekend by threatening to retaliate against U.S. chickens and auto parts. That followed French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s demand on Thursday that Europe impose a carbon tariff on imports from countries that don’t follow its cap-and-trade diktats. “We need to impose a carbon tax at [Europe’s] border. I will lead that battle,” he said.

Mr. Sarkozy was following U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who has endorsed a carbon tax on imports, and the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed a carbon tariff as part of its cap-and-tax bill. This in turn followed the “Buy American” provisions of the stimulus, which has incensed much of Canada; Congress’s bill to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. roads in direct violation of Nafta, prompting Mexico to retaliate against U.S. farm and kitchen goods; and the must-make-cars-in-America provisions of the auto bailouts. Meanwhile, U.S. trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea languish in Congress.

The article goes on to explain how the Smoot-Hawley tariff helped cause the Great Depression. This is exactly the path that President Teleprompter is treading. He is taking us head-first into the next Great Depression because he knows less about economic policy than my keyboard. He did legal work for ACORN, for God’s sake – have you seen who ACORN hires? I’m sure that woman can read a Teleprompter, too.

What do economists think of Obama’s economic policies?

I noticed this post on Greg Mankiw’s blog, where links to a survey of economists.

Click here to read the results of a new survey of AEA members. This updates previous survey results, summarized in Chapter 2 of my favorite textbook.

Note that 83 percent agree that “the United States should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade.” I presume that would apply to tariffs on Chinese tires.

Greg Mankiw is a Harvard University professor of economics.

UPDATE: New Michele Bachmann video!

Wow, is she ever pretty when she’s explaining free trade! Sigh.

News

Pregnant mom holds intruder at gunpoint until police arrive

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Story from Local 15 TV News. (H/T John Lott)

Excerpt:

The lesson here is never threaten an expecting mother, especially if she’s armed with a shotgun.

“I was angry,” Randi Fairley says. “I was really mad that he was in my house.”

At around 4 A.M. Sunday, Fairley was wide awake, because her unborn daughter was kicking. That is when she heard a noise; it sounded like someone touching a potato-chip bag downstairs.

“I came and looked over the stairs,” Fairley says. “I saw this kid, down at the bottom of the stairs. He was about to grab my computer.”

Fairley is six and a half months pregnant. So, she says she yelled down at Justin Delhomme, he walked out of the house and she grabbed a shotgun. In the street, Fairley confronted the 18 year old. “He pulled a gun on me, and I told him, ‘You know, you need to put that away before I shoot you because mine’s bigger,’ and he put it back in his pocket.” . . . .

Video interview from Fox News is here.

The proper use of firearms is not to fire them, but to brandish them to prevent crimes. It’s even better when a women uses firearms to defend her children.