Going Green

This is priceless!!!!

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags,because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a r azor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

--

Hillary's Shortsighted Capital Gains Proposal (American Thinker)

 

By Jeffrey Folks

Unlike Hillary Clinton, I have no idea whether short-term trading is good or bad for markets.  I do know that government has no business regulating it.

Under a plan put forward last week, Clinton would double capital gains taxes on assets held less than five years.  The proposed scheme would tax gains on assets held less than two years at 39.6% (plus an additional 3.8% tax for high earners included under Obamacare).  Assets held more than two years would be taxes at between 20% and 39.6%.  Even a three-year holding period would be subject to a 36% tax. 

Although this proposal would apply only to high earners at this time, bracket creep would eventually subject many middle-class taxpayers to the higher tax.  And all Americans would lose as a result of the distortion of markets resulting from Hillary’s proposal.

The rationale for this revamp of capital gains rates is to force companies to seek long-term growth by forcing investors to take long-term stakes in companies.  Yet there is no consensus that increasing capital gains taxes would have any effect on corporate behavior.  With average tenure of less than five years, corporate CEOs are always going to strive to meet what Hillary calls “short-term” performance goals.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Allowing an underperforming management team five years or more to carry on, as Hillary appears to suggest, won’t do investors or workers any good.  Free markets exist so that investors can vote not just with their proxies, but with their feet.  The freedom to shift capital from underperforming companies to better ones is essential to the operation of capitalism.

Clinton’s capital gains proposal, if enacted, would reduce short-term trading and even trading that is not now considered short-term (selling a stock or fund after three years or even one year is hardly “short-term”).  A five-year threshold would force most investors to hold assets for long periods of time regardless of performance or to move toward indexing so as to postpone most capital gains altogether.  It appears that Hillary’s advisors have not thought through the unintended consequences of this change.

Hillary’s proposal is proof of the lengths to which progressives would go to impose control on free markets.  In her July 24 speech, Hillary attacked “short-termism” on the part of CEOs who strive to meet quarterly goals – presumably merely for the nefarious purpose of increasing their own compensation.  What Ms. Clinton fails to mention is the fact that public corporations have always set long-term goals and published them in annual and quarterly reports subject to SEC oversight.  Any CEO who failed to set long-term goals and seriously attempt to meet them would be out of a job.

Since Hillary and her husband have received tens of millions of dollars in speaking fees and foundation contributions from these selfsame corporations, she must be aware of the fact that corporations do already set long-term goals.  Why then would she employ such demagoguery in attacking corporations for “short-termism”?  Presumably, merely to advance her own campaign.

There are several major objections to Hillary’s capital gains proposal.  First, government has no business attempting to micromanage equity markets or to steer the behavior of CEOs toward particular ends.  Whenever government attempts such control, as it has many times in the past, the result is counterproductive.  In the financial crisis of 2008-2009, which resulted from government intrusion in mortgage markets, the result was a global economic collapse.

Certainly, the imposition of higher capital gains taxes would deter trading on the part of investors.  But would a reduction in trading translate into a greater emphasis on long-term thinking on the part of CEOs?

CEOs would still be under pressure to increase profits and revenues on a quarterly and annual basis, just as they have been from time immemorial.  Whether the standard of measurement is one quarter, one year, or five years, it is obvious that some standard must exist.  For progressives like Hillary Clinton, the problem is not really short-termism, but capitalism itself.  That’s why, in the same address in which she proposed doubling capital gains taxes, she promised to increase the role of labor organizing and increase minimum wages.  Decisions that should be left to the markets are to be taken over by Soviet-style central planners.

Hillary’s capital gains proposal would also result in the creation of markets in which assets would become significantly mispriced.  A reluctance to trade when assets become overvalued or undervalued creates pent up mispricing that can result in greater than normal volatility.  Curbs on trading pose a serious danger to financial markets.  The use of tax policy to dissuade investors from trading would not make markets safer, as Hillary would have us believe.  It would increase the likelihood of financial instability.

Yet another unintended consequence of Hillary’s half-baked proposal would be a reduction in government revenues from capital gains.  While it appears that her plan would increase revenues (for the purpose of funding ever greater expansion of government, particularly in the areas of health care and education), the actual effect of capital gains increases has always been to reduce revenues.  A large body of research exists, some of it conducted by Dr. Arthur Laffer, demonstrating that the effect of increased capital gains taxation is to dampen trading so as to reduce government revenues.  Investors will simply hold onto their positions rather than submit to tax rates of 43.4%, plus state and local taxes.

It is investors themselves, including activist investors, who bring about desirable changes in CEO behavior.  By moving funds out of underperforming companies, investors signal the need for change in management.  By inhibiting trading, Hillary’s proposal would forestall this outcome and so make it more difficult to change behavior of CEOs whose conduct is not aligned with the interests of investors and workers.

The best medicine for the markets is not more regulation and taxes.  It is to allow markets to function as they were intended.  Hillary seems to be so eager to establish her progressive credentials that she has lost sight of how markets operate.  In other words, she’s more interested in winning the Democratic nomination for president than she is in creating economic prosperity for American investors and workers.  Now that’s what I call “short-termism.”

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books on American politics and culture, including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Unlike Hillary Clinton, I have no idea whether short-term trading is good or bad for markets.  I do know that government has no business regulating it.

Under a plan put forward last week, Clinton would double capital gains taxes on assets held less than five years.  The proposed scheme would tax gains on assets held less than two years at 39.6% (plus an additional 3.8% tax for high earners included under Obamacare).  Assets held more than two years would be taxes at between 20% and 39.6%.  Even a three-year holding period would be subject to a 36% tax. 

Although this proposal would apply only to high earners at this time, bracket creep would eventually subject many middle-class taxpayers to the higher tax.  And all Americans would lose as a result of the distortion of markets resulting from Hillary’s proposal.

The rationale for this revamp of capital gains rates is to force companies to seek long-term growth by forcing investors to take long-term stakes in companies.  Yet there is no consensus that increasing capital gains taxes would have any effect on corporate behavior.  With average tenure of less than five years, corporate CEOs are always going to strive to meet what Hillary calls “short-term” performance goals.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Allowing an underperforming management team five years or more to carry on, as Hillary appears to suggest, won’t do investors or workers any good.  Free markets exist so that investors can vote not just with their proxies, but with their feet.  The freedom to shift capital from underperforming companies to better ones is essential to the operation of capitalism.

Clinton’s capital gains proposal, if enacted, would reduce short-term trading and even trading that is not now considered short-term (selling a stock or fund after three years or even one year is hardly “short-term”).  A five-year threshold would force most investors to hold assets for long periods of time regardless of performance or to move toward indexing so as to postpone most capital gains altogether.  It appears that Hillary’s advisors have not thought through the unintended consequences of this change.

Hillary’s proposal is proof of the lengths to which progressives would go to impose control on free markets.  In her July 24 speech, Hillary attacked “short-termism” on the part of CEOs who strive to meet quarterly goals – presumably merely for the nefarious purpose of increasing their own compensation.  What Ms. Clinton fails to mention is the fact that public corporations have always set long-term goals and published them in annual and quarterly reports subject to SEC oversight.  Any CEO who failed to set long-term goals and seriously attempt to meet them would be out of a job.

Since Hillary and her husband have received tens of millions of dollars in speaking fees and foundation contributions from these selfsame corporations, she must be aware of the fact that corporations do already set long-term goals.  Why then would she employ such demagoguery in attacking corporations for “short-termism”?  Presumably, merely to advance her own campaign.

There are several major objections to Hillary’s capital gains proposal.  First, government has no business attempting to micromanage equity markets or to steer the behavior of CEOs toward particular ends.  Whenever government attempts such control, as it has many times in the past, the result is counterproductive.  In the financial crisis of 2008-2009, which resulted from government intrusion in mortgage markets, the result was a global economic collapse.

Certainly, the imposition of higher capital gains taxes would deter trading on the part of investors.  But would a reduction in trading translate into a greater emphasis on long-term thinking on the part of CEOs?

CEOs would still be under pressure to increase profits and revenues on a quarterly and annual basis, just as they have been from time immemorial.  Whether the standard of measurement is one quarter, one year, or five years, it is obvious that some standard must exist.  For progressives like Hillary Clinton, the problem is not really short-termism, but capitalism itself.  That’s why, in the same address in which she proposed doubling capital gains taxes, she promised to increase the role of labor organizing and increase minimum wages.  Decisions that should be left to the markets are to be taken over by Soviet-style central planners.

Hillary’s capital gains proposal would also result in the creation of markets in which assets would become significantly mispriced.  A reluctance to trade when assets become overvalued or undervalued creates pent up mispricing that can result in greater than normal volatility.  Curbs on trading pose a serious danger to financial markets.  The use of tax policy to dissuade investors from trading would not make markets safer, as Hillary would have us believe.  It would increase the likelihood of financial instability.

Yet another unintended consequence of Hillary’s half-baked proposal would be a reduction in government revenues from capital gains.  While it appears that her plan would increase revenues (for the purpose of funding ever greater expansion of government, particularly in the areas of health care and education), the actual effect of capital gains increases has always been to reduce revenues.  A large body of research exists, some of it conducted by Dr. Arthur Laffer, demonstrating that the effect of increased capital gains taxation is to dampen trading so as to reduce government revenues.  Investors will simply hold onto their positions rather than submit to tax rates of 43.4%, plus state and local taxes.

It is investors themselves, including activist investors, who bring about desirable changes in CEO behavior.  By moving funds out of underperforming companies, investors signal the need for change in management.  By inhibiting trading, Hillary’s proposal would forestall this outcome and so make it more difficult to change behavior of CEOs whose conduct is not aligned with the interests of investors and workers.

The best medicine for the markets is not more regulation and taxes.  It is to allow markets to function as they were intended.  Hillary seems to be so eager to establish her progressive credentials that she has lost sight of how markets operate.  In other words, she’s more interested in winning the Democratic nomination for president than she is in creating economic prosperity for American investors and workers.  Now that’s what I call “short-termism.”

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books on American politics and culture, including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Americans now know: More guns = less crime

 

By John R. Lott Jr.

July 27, 2015

Americans are increasingly convinced that owning a gun makes them safer.

A new Rasmussen poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans (68%) "feel safer in a neighborhood where guns are allowed." And a series of polls by Gallup, the Pew Research Center and ABC News and The Washington Post show similar results.

But it isn't just what people say. They are clearly putting more stock in self-defense. Since 2007, the number of concealed-handgun permits has soared, from 4.6 million to 12.8 million. A new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center finds that a record 1.7 million permits have been issued in just the past year, a 15.4% increase.

Nationwide, 5.2% of adults have a permit.

But in five states, more than 10% of adults now have concealed-carry permits. In some counties around the United States, more than one in five adults are licensed to carry. In much of the country, someone among theater-goers or restaurant customers is likely to be legally carrying a permitted concealed handgun.

But even these numbers don't do full justice to the change that has taken place.

Recently, Maine became the 10th state to allow concealed carrying without a permit in all or almost all of the state. Kansas and Mississippi also made the change on July 1. In these states, we no longer know how many people are legally carrying guns, and thus the 12.8 million figure is clearly an underestimation.

Women increasingly carry guns and hold more than a quarter of concealed-handgun permits. Since 2007, the number of permits among men has grown by 156%, and among women by 270%.

There is also evidence that minorities are catching on to the benefits of concealed carry. Blacks now make up 7% to 8% of permit holders, but their rate of increase is double that of whites.

Poverty presents an obstacle, as permits can be very expensive. In Illinois, for instance, the total cost of getting a permit, including fees and mandated training costs, is about $450. In neighboring Indiana, it is just $45.

With Democrats typically pushing for higher costs to reduce the number of people with permits, the biggest impact is to disarm the people who are the most likely victims of violent crime, the ones who need the permits the most: poor minorities who live in high-crime urban areas.

Changing attitudes also explain the changing composition of permit holders. Since 2012, when the Pew Research Center started asking people if they think guns make them safer, there has been a 25% surge in the proportion of blacks who think so. The increase was 11% among women — more than the increase among men.

These new permits seem to have worked well. Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates fell from 5.6 to 4.2 deaths per 100,000 (according to preliminary estimates). This 25% drop coincided with a 156% increase in the number of adults with permits. A similar drop occurred in other violent crimes.

The data have consistently shown that states with the biggest increases in permits also experienced the biggest reductions in murder rates. Dozens of academic papers have documented that allowing concealed carrying leads to a reduction in violent crime, and the Crime Prevention Research Center report shows that this pattern has continued over the last few years.

Permit holders are extremely law-abiding — even more law-abiding than the police, who are rarely convicted of crimes. The latest data from Texas and Florida continue to show that permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at less than one-sixth the rate that police officers are.

A couple of weeks ago, former CNN anchor Lynne Russell and her husband received national attention for using their permitted concealed handgun to save their lives. Only after the robber started shooting did Russell's wounded husband pull out his gun and return fire.

With more than 12.8 million people legally able to carry handguns, the couple's experience is hardly unique. As dramatic as their story was, it was unusual mainly in that it received national publicity because Russell is so famous. Americans with concealed handguns save lives every day.

John R. Lott Jr. is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime." He wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Illegal Alien Crime Wave in Texas: 611,234 Crimes, 2,993 Murders (maybe Trump is right!)

 

A PJ Media exclusive.

by J. Christian Adams

July 22, 2015 - 6:40 pm

 

The murder of Kathryn Steinle on the Embarcadero in San Francisco by an illegal alien is the most familiar example of a crime committed by an alien.  But an unreleased internal report by the Texas Department of Public Safety reveals that aliens have been involved in thousands of crimes in Texas alone, including nearly 3,000 homicides.

PJ Media obtained a never-before-released copy of a Texas DPS report on human smuggling containing the numbers of crimes committed by aliens in Texas.   According to the analysis conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, foreign aliens committed 611,234 unique crimes in Texas from 2008 to 2014, including thousands of homicides and sexual assaults.

The report describes an alien crime wave of staggering proportions exacerbated by federal officials unwilling to enforce immigration laws.

The Texas DPS report says well over 100,000 individual criminal aliens have been booked into Texas jails:

From October 2008 to April 2014, Texas identified a total 177,588 unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county jails. These individuals have been identified through the Secure Communities initiative, in which Texas has participated since October 2008.

There are almost certainly more criminal aliens who haven’t been identified as aliens.  The 177,588 criminal aliens identified by Texas through the Secure Communities initiative only can tag criminal aliens who had already been fingerprinted.  Arrests of illegal aliens who have not been fingerprinted prior to arrest are not included in these arrests numbers derived from the Secure Communities initiative.

That means that the already stratospheric aggregate crime totals would be even higher if crimes by many illegal aliens who are not in the fingerprint database were included.

Confessed Texas killer Juan Vasquez

The Secure Communities initiative is an information-sharing program between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Presumably, both departments would have data on the number of fingerprint searches conducted that revealed a criminal act involved an alien.

Texas has been ground zero in illegal alien crossings into the United States.  The Texas DPS report shows that in the Rio Grande Valley, 154,453 illegal aliens were apprehended in 2013.

Total illegal alien apprehensions by sector. (Source: Texas DPS report).

Other Texas sectors saw approximately 86,000 illegal aliens apprehended.  All other sectors combined on the southern border only saw approximately 170,000 illegal alien apprehensions in the same time period.  The Obama administration releases a sizable portion of the illegal aliens captured.

The criminal aliens identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety have been responsible for the most heinous types of crimes — and in astonishing numbers. From the Texas DPS report:

A review of these 177,588 defendants shows that they are responsible for at least 611,234 individual criminal charges over their criminal careers, including 2,993 homicides and 7,695 sexual assaults.

One such murder was committed by Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez. Vasquez confessed to killing his wife with a hammer in Laredo.

The increasing flood across the border combined with the existence of sanctuary cities bolstered by Obama administration policies allowing the release of the most violent criminal aliens has fueled these crimes.

“Other Than Mexican” apprehensions. Most are released. (Source: Texas DPS report)

The House Judiciary Committee has passed the Davis-Oliver Act, introduced (S.1640) in the Senate by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and in the House (H.R.1148) by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), which would address many of these issues.

Yesterday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña about the 104,000 criminals that ICE released in 2013, and the 68,000 criminals against whom ICE refused to start deportation proceedings.  Saldaña calls it “good news” that only 30,558 criminal aliens were released by ICE in 2014.