Don't Underestimate The American Worker

Present Times
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned of more violence as the Taliban’s spring offensive unfolds. “We’re going to continue to see suicide attacks,” Mr. Panetta said. “We’re going to continue to see efforts by them to try to undermine confidence in Afghanistan that we’re headed in the right direction.” He added: “It hasn’t worked in the past. I don’t think it’ll work in the present.” (NYT, 4/16/2012)


Yesterday RedStateVT speculated on how the press would have covered the recent Taliban raids in Afghanistan during the Bush administration. Our belief is that there would have been extensive questioning of the efficacy of Bush's strategic goals and objectives. So one day later the passage above is the sole reference to the Obama administration, coming in the last paragraph of the New York Times article. 


Parlez
Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have spent the last decade tracking the incomes of the poor, the middle class and the rich in countries across the world. More than anything else, their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades, with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression. (NYT, 4/16/2012)


The intellectual parents of the Democrats' redistribution ideas are - it turns out - two French economists, one of whom teaches at Berkeley. Why are we not surprised? Note the antiquated view that wealth is static, ergo the rich are 'taking more' from the poor.


Don't Let The Sun Go Down
America's largest solar panel manufacturer is laying off 2,000 workers and closing factories in response to waning demand and increased competition from China. (NYT, 4/17/2012)


Now we can't blame Republicans for this...or can we?


Pressed Measures
Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a move to open debate on the so-called Buffett Rule, ensuring that a measure pressed for months by President Obama and Senate Democrats to ensure that the superrich pay a tax rate of at least 30 percent will not come to a decisive vote. (NYT, 4/16/2012)


The Senate has, so far, not taken up the Buffett Billion Rule recently proposed by RedStateVT wherein all individual wealth above $1 billion is returned to the government by way of a fairness tax. Write your Congressman today. Demand the Senate pass the Buffett Billion Rule!


So It Was
It was Sex Week at Harvard, a student-run program of lectures, panel discussions and blush-inducing conversations about all things sexual. The event was Harvard’s first, though the tradition started at Yale in 2002 and has since spread to colleges around the country: Brown, Northeastern, the University of Kentucky, Indiana University and Washington University have all held some version of Sex Week in recent years. (NYT, 4/16/2012)


What your $200,000 buys. We are speechless.