Disqus - Latest Comments for BrunoBehrend

Re: Migration: The Straw That’s Breaking Europe’s Back

BrunoBehrend — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:03:44 -0000

I have been saying the same thing for a long time.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: ...AND CHEAPER...:

BrunoBehrend — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:33:59 -0000

And every dollar invested in an "energy efficiency bureaucracy" is wasted.

What twaddle.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: RACING THE ECONOMY:

BrunoBehrend — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:30:15 -0000

The economy is good for 7% of the people. The other 93, not so much.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: IT'S ALWAYS FREEDOM VS SECURITY:

BrunoBehrend — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 08:09:51 -0000

what happened to that reviewer?

Re: The Job Killers

BrunoBehrend — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:24:52 -0000

The best news in this article is the drop in public sector jobs. The worst news is that it hasn't cratered public sector jobs faster and steeper.

While all rational people understand the need for police, fire, courts and some level of administration of public services, the fact remains that while Wall Street was packaging toxic assets into a real estate bubble, state and local units of gov. went on a public greed binge of pork, pensions, perks and obscene payroll expansion.

In IL, employment in the the 5 universities that make up the U of I system went from 47K to 83K from 2000 to 2010. This was matched by massive run-ups in k-12 education payroll, where administration bloat spiked property taxes to levels that chased seniors out of their homes.

Police, Fire and every other level of public employee, while smaller in number than the feather-bedded education monopoly, took their share of "obscene profits" in the form of pension spikes that no level of stock or bond growth could sustain.

These people sucked off the Wall Street/Housing bubble, and now whine that public employment is dropping. Awwwwww! I challenge any liberal here to defend such greed. Funding a fat cat school superintendent in an un-necessary school district destroys the ability to fund necessary services, so deal with it.

We could cut education admin and support by 70%, and not lose a single neuron connected in one student's head.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: EXCEPT THAT WALDO IS ALWAYS IN THE PICTURE SOMEWHERE:

BrunoBehrend — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:18:18 -0000

Waldo is very much in the picture, quietly consolidating gains in the federal bureaucracy, biding his time, waiting for the still fawning media to do his work for him.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: BUT IT HAS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NAME!:

BrunoBehrend — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 12:56:14 -0000

If self-restraint and delayed gratification are "self-governance," and they are, then one can extrapolate that government would would share similar attributes. "Good" governance would be an open and transparent process of resource allocation. "Pork is governance" may be true, but has little similarity to "good governance."

Further, while you are correct that 'earmarks' are a drop in the bucket compared to Soc. Sec. and Medicare, I would simply point out that entitlements are merely pork on steroids. Hence...

Pork is bad governance, capping spending is good governance."

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: THE QUITTER AIN'T RUNNING:

BrunoBehrend — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:32:16 -0000

The entire press corp reacts to her tweets and postings. She runs the Obama administration more ragged than any conservative, including Limbaugh.

I personally hope she doesn't run, and I wish she would get herself a "oprah-style", show where she can start doing even more damage, but you are, as usual, off base with your attacks on her.

Further, a Palin, Obama, Bloomberg race, where the electorate is up for grabs in an open field election, any one of the three could pull off a victory.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: IF THE GOP COULD GET JUST A THIRD OF THE BLACK VOTE....:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:51:02 -0000

I've seen some analysis that 20% of the black vote would make the Dems a permanent minority party.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: NEVER ELECT A GUY WHO CARES ABOUT HIS Q RATING:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:44:27 -0000

Arnold tried valiantly to gain control of the unions with 4 big initiatives that would have hamstrung them into submission to reality. He was abandoned by business, taxpayers, and the state and national GOP. Once he lost all 4, why shouldn't have just said "Screw it!"

CA, IL and some NE states are already functionally Greek model states. The only hope for the nation is that we refuse the bail them out.

One of the best things that could have happened from a REAL economic meltdown would have been an utter collapse of all government pension funds. While probably proper to have avoided that debacle, their survival means productive Americans will be on the hook for "saving CA" and the other American "Greek states."

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: LET THE GUY WHO LIKED BEING PRESIDENT HANDLE THE JOB:

BrunoBehrend — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:26:36 -0000

It isn't healthy for a civilization's most powerful person to be so detached. I guess we can run on autopilot, but these are clearly strange days.

Re: Michelle Rhee punts on Unions

BrunoBehrend — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:39:47 -0000

Dear Guest,

That one of Randi Weingarten's primary talking points, and easily addressed. Studies ever since Coleman have shown that socioeconomic status is the number one predictor of educational success.

High tax, big government states have the highest socio-economic status. The results in these states are a function of the status, not unions.

On top of that, your point about 'right to work' states assumes that there is little union influence. This is a myth. When it comes to education, unions have huge influence in states like North Carolina and Alabama. They may not have the right to strike or bargain collectively, but they still have the clout to write the school code and dictate pay scales, not to mention preventing competition through certification (protectionism) requirements.

Do you have a hard question?

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: BLOWING OUT OF THE BLUE STATES:

BrunoBehrend — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:30:33 -0000

That's democrats leaving the the places they stunk up. Now they are looking for perfectly good red states to poop in.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: WERE THE GOP TO NOMINATE A NUT...:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:27:23 -0000

Hence my earlier mention of Bloomberg on another post. Bloomberg can triangulate perfectly between Obama and 2 or 3 of the Rs (Palin , Huckabee, Santorum).

If it's Mitch Daniels, and Bloomberg decides to run, it's entirely possible that an indy could out poll the dem.

With the "open field" political era we are in right now, the biggest danger is that someone does the opposite of Lerner's absurd piece. Bloomberg could run to the right of Obama as a DEM, and possibly win the nomination.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: THAT'S NOT THE PART THAT MATTERS:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:20:28 -0000

Speaking of third party candidates, if Palin plays her hand into the nomination (possible, but unlikely), we will may see an Obama/Palin/Bloomberg race.

That is one race that will have Bloomberg winning some states. Could be an interesting year. To bad it's over on Dec. 21st 2012.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: AT LEAST DIVERSIFY INTO TULIPS:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:13:30 -0000

With the growing middle class in China and India, the demand for both jewelry and what ever industrial applications there are provide a perfectly good explanation for the price increase. Add QE2 and the hyping by talk radio mavens, and you have plenty of reasons to see gold continue to climb.

It isn't as if anyone is really trying to bring back a strong dollar.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: YOU THINK THE RIGHT HATES BROWN? WAIT'LL THEY GET A LOAD OF RUBIO....:

BrunoBehrend — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:02:58 -0000

He'll recognize them the moment they become sellouts

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: NO THREE-WAY, RICK?:

BrunoBehrend — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:02:59 -0000

It's nice to see at least one party hack who isn't totally self absorbed.

Re: http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/2010/09/a_people_who_think_themselves_4.html

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:59:24 -0000

"A PEOPLE WHO THINK THEMSELVES A NATION ARE ONE:"

Trademark that one too. It should be US policy to drive that internationally, even if it includes the Southwest and coast, which it will someday.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: ELECTIONS ARE NICE, BUT RE-ELECTIONS MATTER:

BrunoBehrend — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 09:37:16 -0000

We can imagine his behind closed door sales pitch.

"Hey guys, if you don't pony up and get the right people back in office, your going to end up with a Republican party less interested in your corrupt rent-seeking ('huge stakes in regulatory and tax policy') and more interested in cutting spending."

O'Donnell and Miller are sideshows to the real battle, which is whether we get an honest Republican Party interested in securing genuine 3rd way reforms or whether we (very briefly) return to power the class of pigs that gave us 2006 & 2008.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME:

BrunoBehrend — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 10:13:46 -0000

You have to broaden the window by a couple of decades. Had Continental been allowed to fail, or had the banking system known that there wouldn't be ANY bailouts, the crisis might never have materialized.

As it is, we have these cycles of boom and bust, and crises that cause more arbitrary government oversight after each one.

The next one will come sooner, and be worse.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: THE WAR ON THE CIVIL SERVICE:

BrunoBehrend — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:19:06 -0000

They are probably about as useful as school superintendents and education administrators, all of which should be cashiered forthwith.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: THE INTELLECTUAL VS THE ANGLO:

BrunoBehrend — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:22:20 -0000

Yet the entire avenue of transmitting the culturally and morally superiror (Hume-ian? Human?) approach is in the hands of our Public Ed system, which is a toxic mix of Bentham, Rousseau, and Nurse Ratched.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: CORPORATIONS HAVE NO POLITICAL RIGHTS BY DEFINITION...:

BrunoBehrend — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:44:29 -0000

Unions are corporations, btw. So are non-profits, and NGOs.

Re: BrothersJudd Blog: THE CONSERVATIVE WAR ON THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL STABILITY:

BrunoBehrend — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:01:05 -0000

Yes, through the mortgage deduction added to the un-necessary income tax.

You have to create a disincentive to create the incentive. That's bad policy