http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/american-austerity/58934/

Rule of law, private property rights enforced by courts, and a government that is not crowding out the private sector. All requirements for free markets because they provide some measure of certainty to investors and entrepreneurs. We don’t have that right now and, as you noted, will not have it as long as Obama and company are in control.

That’s why the uncertainty — and therefore the stagnation — will probably continue indefinitely: Obama’s still got that pen.

Uncertainty is killing job creation.

Bullseye.

Uncertainty is going to be our constant companion until we turn Obama out of office. His public image is now too well-entrenched to be changed quickly or easily. (Hammering GM’s lenders did that with one stroke of the pen.) Even if Obama tacks to the center (which he seems constitutionally incapable of doing), any sensible person will suspect that that’s just a tactical retreat, and he will hammer business and the productive at the first opportunity.

I’m with your entire program except removing the SSI tax cap, which I oppose because the next Dem administration will merely put an IOU into the cookie jar and pee up the additional revenue on union baksheesh, Frisbee golf courses, and other necessities, thereby putting us back into our present fix. While I haven’t thought this through, I would prefer a cap on SSI payouts, and/or indexing SSI payments not to CPI, but to SSI revenues for that year. Make SSI recipients have some skin in the game. Everyone else’s fortunes depend on the health of the economy — theirs should too. Voted for “Hope! Change!” policies that clobber the economy? Then better get the Alpo recipe book, gramps, because you’re going to take the hit with everybody else.

Uncertainty is killing job creation. Business owners sense a hostile administration. Credit has dried up despite there being tons of cash on bank balance sheets. Obamacare is very scary. Temporarily relax bank reserve requirements and repeal Obamacare. Stop with all the antibusiness rhetoric and threats of draconian regulation. Let the banks put some much needed liquidity into the business sector. Consumers will slowly begin to spend and employers will follow with jobs. When the system stabilizes–2 or 3 years out, propose modest incremental changes to the banking regs. Start cutting spending as tax revenues increase. Raise SSI retirement age and remove SSI tax cap.

Mix, simmer, grow–watch carefully.

The markets can’t clear because there are no clear signals from the government that they won’t interfere with the profit motive.

Exactly. Government intervention in the markets in the past has led to the expectation of such intervention in the future, so those with capital hunker down to see what will happen next. The sooner we kick the government intervention habit, and make it clear that we’ve done so, the sooner markets will clear.

This November will be critical. Otherwise, it’ll have to be 2012.

a longtime U.S.-based columnist for the Spanish-language “El Diario” newspaper, were advised of their rights and ordered held due to flight risk, with their next hearing scheduled for July 1….

One of the suspects is Vicky Pelaez, a columnist for “El Diario” for more than 20 years covering politics, immigration and other issues, her lawyer confirmed. Pelaez is married to Juan Lazaro, another of the suspects arrested Monday, and the couple resided in Yonkers, a New York suburb.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/06/29/alleged-spys-newspaper-commentaries-pretty-much-what-youd-expect/

I concur wholeheartedly!

A moron, a fool, an idiot, an imbecile, a clot headed jackass, a brain dead twit, a dunderheaded nincompoop, an incompetent buffoon, an addlepated poltroon… All those, yeah, sure.

But no, not a laughingstock.

I mean, one has to actually be worthy of being taken vaguely seriously to become a laughingstock.