Opinion Forum

Venezuela Has Become a Place of Great Change but Little Hope

May 8th, 2012

By Dan Miller El Presidente Chávez is probably dying and Fidel Castro has warned about blood (not Chávez’ blood) in the streets. He may well be right, for the wrong reasons. Venezuela became a mess, gradually, after el Presidente Chávez took over the government in 1999. Change came slowly for a few years but eventually [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Castro, Chavez, Cuba, elections, foreign policy, succession, Venezuela
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Darwinism Is Needed

April 6th, 2012

By Dan Miller We need social Darwinism. Without it, we are likely to become extinct like the do-do bird. According to President Obama, the Ryan budget passed last week by the House of Representatives 228 to 191 with no Democrats supporting it is nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism,” Mr. Obama said. “By gutting the [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: budget, Greece, green energy, revenue, social darwinism, spending, taxes
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

The Rio + 20 Summit Will Promote Sustainable Deterioration for All

February 25th, 2012

By Dan Miller It does not go far enough. The much awaited Rio + 20 conference on sustainable development of good stuff for everyone calls for full participation ultimately (although not necessarily at the Summit itself) by all because Sustainable development requires major groups – women, children and youth, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organisations, local authorities, [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Brazil, development, energy, green, poverty, Rio+20, satire, sustainable, UN
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Get Ready for Higher Gas Prices

January 22nd, 2012

By Dan Miller Why an oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands will shut down by mid-February. An oil refinery in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, will shut down by mid-February. It is owned by Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Losses at [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: environment, EPA, gas, oil refinery, prices, U.S. Virgin Islands, Venezuela
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Supercommittee Deadlines

November 15th, 2011

By Tom Carter The Washington Post has published a series of charts showing the supercommittee’s deadlines and related actions and what happens if they’re all successfully met. It also shows what will happen, as specified in the Budget Control Act, if the deadlines aren’t met. This is the best brief summary I’ve seen. The Post [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: budget, Congress, cuts, deadlines, defense, entitlements, supercommittee
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Budget Myths versus Reality

November 7th, 2011

By Tom Carter Robert J. Samuelson has been thinking and writing about business and economics for more than 40 years, but he isn’t an economist. That’s in his favor because he’s free to research and evaluate facts unencumbered by the vague theories and detachment from reality that plague economics, known for good reason as “the [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: budget, Congress, conservative, default, liberal, myths, supercommittee
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

Currency Controls and Other Mistakes

October 29th, 2011

By Dan Miller Here is a link to a good nuts and bolts article by Daniel, a blogger in Venezuela who writes at Venezuela News and Views. He also runs a small manufacturing business and has to import material not available in Venezuela for the stuff he makes. Bureaucratic controls on access to foreign currency [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: bureaucracy, controls, currency, distortion, foreign, regulations, tax code
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

ObamaCare, the CLASS Act and the Insurance Mandate

October 17th, 2011

By Dan Miller The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports law (a.k.a. CLASS Act), claiming to provide long term care for us old geezers without burdening the country’s budget, unraveled last week and the Obama Administration put it into suspended animation announcing in a Friday news dump that it would not work financially. President Obama, [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: CLASS, costs, individual mandate, Obamacare, Supreme Court
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Why President Obama Is Really No Worse than el Presidente Chávez

September 26th, 2011

By Dan Miller Here are some of the contrasting great leaps forward made or promised by these two astonishing leaders. This article by James Petras, a former professor of sociology at Binghamton University who claims “a 50-year membership in the class struggle,” appeared on September 17 in the Dissident Voice — a remarkable publication with [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: capitalism, Chavez, el Presidente, housing, Obama, oil, satire, socialism
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Throw the Woodstock Generation off the Stage

September 25th, 2011

By Richard D. Bailey They famously said, “If it feels good, do it.” Well…here goes. We need three simple rules to return common sense to the common good. Here they are: Never vote for anyone in government who was old enough to drive themselves to Woodstock but too young to fight in Korea. Never vote [...]

Articles written by Guest Author
Tags: bums, experience, politicians, qualifications, satire, skills, spending, taxes
Categories: Economics, Life, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Take the Money and Run

September 16th, 2011

By Dan Miller A blog article at American Thinker cites the Wall Street Journal (to which I don’t have access) as follows: One investor behind Solyndra blurted out the truth. The loan was needed and needed urgently to fatten up the company and show a going concern (with a factory, etc). Why? From the column: [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: due dilligence, guarantee, investigators, IPO, loan, Solyndra
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

The American Dream: Sick but Not Dead

September 16th, 2011

By Seth Forman The American Dream of the past eighty years has been defined as single-family home ownership. Suburbs and single-family home ownership appear to fulfill very powerful aspirations for large numbers of people. “The suburban dream house is the idealization of every immigrant’s Dream — the vassal’s dream of his own castle,” wrote Italian-born [...]

Articles written by Seth Forman
Tags: city, foreclosure, housing, mortgage, ownership, suburban, suburbs
Categories: Economics, History, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

TinkerBell Loves President Obama

September 15th, 2011

By Dan Miller During a campaign appearance in North Carolina today, President Obama brought his appeal for passage of the Save Obama Bill (SOB) down to the basics, shouting to the gathered multitude “if you love me you’ve got to clap your hands help me pass this bill.” How on Earth could any reasonable person [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Congress, economy, jobs bill, Obama, recession, satire, unemployment
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

A Simple Fix for Our Economic Mess … Really

September 13th, 2011

By Richard D. Bailey It’s very simple. The economic crisis will not end until the marketplace redresses the problem that caused it in the first place — housing. Fix the housing crisis and you fix the economy. Fix the economy and you fix the deficit. Fix the deficit and you fix … the economy. Fix [...]

Articles written by Guest Author
Tags: banks, economy, mark-to-market, mortgages, recession, recovery, stimulus
Categories: Economics | Comments (1) | Home

There They Go Again

September 7th, 2011

By Dan Miller According to this article by David A. Keene in the Washington Times, Last week, the Obama administration’s Department of Energy announced it is extending an $852 million loan guarantee to something called the Genesis Solar Project in California. Genesis, according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, will be built on federal land and [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: bankruptcy, DOE, energy, Genesis, green, guarantees, loans, Solyndra
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

The Humpty Dumpty President’s Magic Words

September 6th, 2011

By Dan Miller “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” My first blog article on political matters, published on April 1, 2008, and republished here a few days ago, was titled “Words, Words, Words! I’m [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: communicate, Congress, deception, economy, jobs, satire, speech, words
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Obama Will Soon Offer Plans to Create Jobs, and Conservatives Must Help

August 20th, 2011

By Dan Miller These novel ideas are all workable and truly bipartisan; they should appeal to libruls and conservatives alike. The country needs productive jobs, not counter-productive jobs. During his bus tour of the hinterlands aboard a new $1.1 million bus made in Canada (“the perfect coach for entertainers, sports stars, NASCAR drivers, executive travel, [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: bus, business, green, jobs, Obama, overseas, plan, satire, unions, vacation
Categories: Economics, Humor, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

An Analogy for the Debt Mess Resolution

August 4th, 2011

By Dan Miller It’s time to look for the good that can be accomplished and to make it happen. Complaining about past deficiencies will retard rather than advance that process. Let me offer a military analogy. The first battle in the war has been fought, with mixed results. The good guys had fewer resources and [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: debt limit, losers, spending, strategy, tactics, taxes, winners
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

The Donkey Pins the Tail on Itself

July 29th, 2011

By Dan Miller The Dem position on spending simply cannot end well for them. (Update: Boehner bill passes House, And the Next Move Is…?) If there is no debt limit increase soon, the credit ratings of the United States will go down. If there is a deal but with no significant and credible reduction in [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: AAA, credit rating, debt limit, Democrats, S&P, spending, taxes, Tea Party
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Wall St in Free Fall; Stock Brokers Commit Mass Suicide

July 25th, 2011

By Dan Miller As calmly encouraged by the Obama Administration and hence widely anticipated, the U.S. stock markets crashed today because the obstructionist Republicans again refused to yield in the face of President Obama’s persuasive and bipartisan efforts to bring peace, justice and prosperity to all of humankind. He is flexible; why can’t they be [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: debt limit, negotiations, satire, stock market, suicide
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

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