News

Obama to appoint anti-business radical to regulate businesses?

3 Comments

From ABC News. (H/T Verum Serum)

Excerpt:

President Obama will announce this week that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who first proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be named to a special position reporting to both him and to the Treasury Department and tasked with heading the effort to get the new federal agency standing, a knowledgeable Democrat told ABC News.

Warren currently chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Assets Relief Program and has been seen by many on the Left as a force for greater accountability and transparency, and a check against the forces in the Obama administration more closely allied with the financial sector. Many officials in that sector eye her warily as too anti-business…

Naming Warren as an assistant or counselor to both the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would allow the president to bypass a Senate confirmation process that could prove lengthy and contentious.

Morgen writes:

The official White House announcement tomorrow will no doubt emphasize Warren’s role in originating the idea for this agency, and her impressive academic credentials. (Credential number one – she’s a “dear friend” of Obama’s dating back to law school.)

But expect there to be major fireworks over this appointment. Just how anti-business is Warren? Here is only a preview, from her blog on TPM in 2005 (emphasis added):

The middle class is being carved up as the main dish in a corporate feast.  Strugging with flat incomes and rising costs for housing, health care, transportation, child care and taxes (yes, taxes), these folks are under a lot of financial strain.  And big corporate interests, led by the consumer finance industry, are devouring families and spitting out the bones.

Well, I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a fan of this particular industry, if not corporations in general. But with the Consumer Financial Protection Agency charged with regulating everything from mortgages to credit cards, and the companies who market them, you would think it would be helpful to have someone with at least a semblance of impartiality heading it up.

Apparently the White House disagrees.

This is why corporations aren’t hiring. They’re waiting for anti-business Obama to get voted out in 2012.

Videos

John Stossel documentary on entrepreneurs in America

1 Comment

Here’s the intro video. (H/T The Blog Prof)

And the remaining parts:

  • Part 2: The commuter vans entrepreneur debates against the head of the transport union
  • Part 3: How government regulates and sues entrepreneurs who want to start and run businesses
  • Part 4: How governments and big businesses force entrepreneurs to get licenses they don’t need
  • Part 5: How governments pass regulations to insulate lobbying businesses from competition
  • Part 6: Q&A with some of the guests
  • Part 7: Stossel’s conclusion

This documentary explains how government regulations get in the way of people who have great ideas.

The best clips were 3 and 6.

More John Stossel stuff

News

A new study finds that too much television hurts your mental health

27 Comments

Look at this Life Site News post.

Excerpt:

A new study has found that watching more than 4 hours of TV a day has an adverse effect on mental well-being.

The study was conducted by Mark Hamer, PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, and research associates Emmanuel Stamatakis, PhD, and Gita D. Mishra, PhD. It analyzed the association of leisure-time sedentary behavior in adults, measured by television and screen-based entertainment (TVSE) time, and mental health.

The researchers looked at mental health survey data of 3920 men and women between the ages of 35 and 65 years, from the 2003 Scottish Health Survey. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the mental health component of the 12-Item Short-Form Survey Instrument (MCS-12) were administered to obtain information on current mental health. Self-reported TVSE time, physical activity, and general health were also measured.

Approximately a quarter of the participants in the study engaged in at least four hours a day of watching screen-based entertainment.

After adjustment for age, gender, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, fruit and vegetable intake, the researchers found that participants with the highest TVSE level had the highest instances of mental health problems compared with participants in the group with the lowest TVSE level of less than 2 hours per day.

The report concludes that, while sedentary behavior is known to be an independent risk factor for physical health, mental well-being also deteriorates with more time spent in front of the TV.

I don’t watch TV, but I really need to get more exercise! This study makes me feel really guilty.