That ought to hold you SOBs for a bit.
Now its time for History Notes.

Read it and Weep: The state of the Union

TEXT - Bush's State of the Union Speech

Democratic Response
to the State of the Union Address

The Real State of the Union by the Atlantic Monthly

Things that aren't really that suprising...

'Guru of Ganja' convicted of cultivation

Vatican denounces transsexuals

N. Korea rejects multilateral talks

"Joe Millonaire" finalist said bondage star

Bush rhetoric divides Congress

Chicago Boys Weblog
Not by my friends at U. Chicago, just a website in honor to the "Chicago Boys". This wesbite has finally answered the question of whether or not intelligen conservatives exist and it has answered with a resounding "probably".

The Rancid Return of Cronyism
Listen to Dean Friedman's new song "George Washington Slept Here".

And click here to buy the album

and here to tell him to start linking to my site, because damn it, I've been plugging his nonsense from day one! Day one! Burhmmmm!

He better link soon or I might start destroying his lawn with agent orange or something.

I found an article on SpinSanity which really clarified the debate over Bush's proposed tax cut. SpinSanity doesn't seem to have permalinks so here is an excerpt:

For more clarity, let's turn to one critic who shows us how to square the circle, the Brookings Institution's Peter Orszag. He recently engaged these points in more detail in testimony to the Democratic Policy Committee finding that the top 1 percent of taxpayers by income pay 36.7 percent of income taxes but receive 28.8 percent of the proposed tax cut in 2003 (a finding that is broadly consistent with the Treasury figures). But he points out that this 28.8 percent figure is larger than the group's share of the overall federal tax burden, which is 24.8 percent. This means that the Bush plan would reduce the relative share of federal taxes paid by the top 1 percent even as it increased their share of the income tax burden. The explanation for this is that the tax cut reduces income tax revenues as a percentage of overall federal tax revenues, increasing the proportion of federal taxes coming from taxes that fall more heavily on lower-income Americans, such as excise and payroll taxes.

The IMF Strikes Back
This article, while not completing destroying the arguments of IMF critics in the street and in the academy does weaken them. It shows the complexity of the issues involved and that for a lot of poor nations none of their options are really attractive and that the IMF is more often than not just a scapegoat.

Booes, Hisses and Cheers
Tax-Free Savings! Is That Good?

The Bush administration has begun touting tax free savings accounts.

The first budget proposal would create two new consolidated savings accounts: Lifetime Savings Accounts (LSAs) and Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs). Not only would individuals be able to contribute up to $7,500 a year to these accounts regardless of their income or age, but the proposal also includes a provision that would allow individuals to transfer existing accounts into these new accounts. There would be no restrictions on the money's withdrawal.

I'm very suspicious of these tax free savings accounts. According to the article, it would mainly benefit the wealthy, which makes sense since the rich haver more investments than the middle class. It seems like the Republicans don't think that investments ought to be taxed at all, its really kind of disgusting. I suppose their reasoning is that "since the well-off investors work, they shouldn't pay taxes".

However, not the plan isn't all bad:

The second budget proposal would create Employer Retirement Savings Accounts (ERSAs, not to be confused with ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act). These accounts would consolidate 401(k), simple 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans into a single type of plan. ERSAs would follow a simplified set of rules similar to those for 401(k) plans.

Simplyfing the tax code is almost always good and according to the article, these ERSAs will be more fair to the poor and make tax sheltering more difficult. Let's just home the tax free accounts are amputated to protect the good that ERSAs might do, but of course something so reasonable would never happen. I suspecte that they are just a beard designed to cover the nastier features of this proposal. Blast!

Brian's Idiocy Watch
Yes, I know The New Republic has already done this, but I think by listing websites that are run by buffoons, I'm providing an essential public service. If its not informative, it hopefully be entertaining. So with out further ado, I give you the Axis of Ignorance:

The Left
stop-fascism.org

The Right
NewsMax
Ann Coulter
Front Page Magazine
David Horowitz's Weblog
Free Republic
Confederate Pride

Click here to see what my friends have been up to over at U. Chicago
Oh man. Is it College yet?

House Rolls Back the Gift Ban
On January 7th the House voted to get rid of a rule that prevented congressmen from accepting all expense paid trips. Another dike against the undue influence of special interests torn down all thanks to Tom Delay. Burhmmm.

On Media Giantism
Showing that he's not your average conservative, William Safire has the sense to oppose the growing corporate influence over the media.

Google hunts down "President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership"
Who needs FOX News when you have GOP astro-turf campaigns? It appears that the Republicans have sent of form letter-to-the-editor to Newspapers across the country and many papers published these fraudulent demonstrations of grassroots support for the Presidents economic plan. This is another nail in the coffin for the liberal media myth and a new low for the Republicans (or should I say, the Stradlatter Party).

An economics Newsbot.

Dicking Around
Vice Grip
Josh Marshall has written an excellent article about the incompetence of Dick Cheney. Marshall points out that Cheney has been behind almost every misstep the White House has made. It isn't simply that Cheney supports bad policies, but that the politics of his policies are bad. The article effectively explodeds the convetional wisdom about Cheney being the brains behind the operation, but the Press Corps is always so hesistant to break from the script. Oh, well, I suppose we'll have to way a few more years before they realize that Karl "Mayberry Machiavelli" Rove is actually running the show.

Sour Grapes or Just Desserts?
Paul O'Neil has crticized Bush's stimulus plan. Until last December, O'Neil was Bush's Treasury Secretary, so this may very well be Paul O'Neil merely taking cheap shots at the man who forced him to leave. Lawrence Lindsey, who also got the boot from Bush has praised the plan like the lackey he is. O'Neil's comments may or may not be opportunistic, but they sure are dumb. Mr. O'Neil believes that "government can actually do something about that in the short term is ridiculous" and that 6% unemployment is "not bad". Such stupidity raises questions about the administration that gave him a job in the first place.

Glenn Hubbard, Serious Economist or A Pathetic and Depraved Mind Whore for the Right?
Recently Glenn Hubbard, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, claimed that deficits do not cause an increase in interest rates and thereby decrease borrowing and harm the economy, dismissing such very legitimate fears a "Rubinomics" (which seems kind of foolish to me, because as Secretary of the Treasury, Rubin is given credit for the longest peace time expansion of the economy in history) . By arguing the deficits don't matter, Hubbard is trying to convince the American people that they have nothing to fear about the deficit-swelling sop to the wealthy that Bush calls a stimulus package. However, it seems that only recently Hubbard has adopted this ridiculous posistion. In an economics textbook Hubbard wrote for undergraduate economics students warns that deficit spending does higher interest rates.

Ah yes, but this completely ignores the law of supply and demand. Mainly that Bush demands Hubbard to supply him with tortured economic justifications for bad policies.




Burhmmmmm!

Have a look at the Thomas Paine archive

Appeasement, Please
The case for paying North Korea's nuclear blackmail.
The more you think about it, the more unsetteling North Korea becomes. These doesn't seem to be a good solution to this problem. We can't "pre-empt" (like we maybe about to do with Iraq) the threat of a North Korea with nuclear arms, because they may have a few atom bombs already and thousands of artillery pieces on the border, which would be able to kill thousands of South Koreans and Americans. In light of this, the case for appeasement is particulary strong. However, I think that appeasement in the short term ought to be coupled with a long term strategy aimed at weakening the North, through I'm not sure how we could go about that. The New Republic suggests giving North Korean defectors refugee status maybe the help tame Pyongyang, which I suppose is better than ding nothing.