How Do Politicians Get Rich in Office?

I know a fellow named Eric Singer who runs a mutual fund called the Congressional Effect Fund.  His management strategy is simple and direct: buy stocks when Congress recesses and sell when it comes back in session.  Why is that?  Simple.  His market studies show that strategy makes money. 

How does it work?

How to Use the Debt Limit Votes (Tea Party On, Part III)

Immediately after the Final extension of the 2011 continuing resolution was agreed to back in April, I wrote about debt-limit vote strategy for the Republican House.  In particular, I described the political value of insisting on the inclusion of mandatory spending cuts in any debt limit increase this way:

How to Select a Republican Presidential Nominee?

Jay Cost wrote an interesting piece for the Weekly Standard recently, giving three criteria he thought the Republican Party would use to decide who to nominate for President

I don't think his criteria are very cogent.
 
i. Electability? The easy answer to that is for the Republicans to nominate -- wait for it --

Are You One, Too?

The Pew Research Center has done a recent comprehensive survey on political attitudes, about which you can read more later.  As part of that, it has devised a classification of people into political groups by their responses on key issues.  Their web site has a very nice quiz form you can use to classify yourself in a minute or two.  You will find that here.  Enjoy....

By the way, it tells me I'm a Libertarian.  Duh!  Bet you already knew that.

The story on the poll can be found here.

The Fight of the Century

This is more than just a bit of fun.  Many years ago, I concluded that getting Hollywood on our side would be the best way to counter the educational establishment's leftist slant and reach the young earlier.  The Moving Picture Institute is a group trying to get that going by supporting young conservative film makers to make movies advocating individual liberty.  They are doing a great job.

Here is a message from the Institute via their Persistence of Vision blog about the release of a new rap music video -- yes, that's right -- featuring a debate between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek -- still right -- testifying before Congress.  Very slickly produced and lot of fun to watch, these videos are available on YouTube.
These folks at the MPI are having entirely too much fun.  You should watch "Fear" before "Fight", and in case you don't know... Keynes is the bad guy!

Enjoy!

Canada Turns Right

With the dramatic double tap on bin Laden still dominating the news, you can be excused for missing Tuesday's results in the 41st Canadian Parliamentary Election held Monday.  Conservatives won a flat out majority of 167 seats to 141 for all other parties combined.

This is still further indication that the rise of the Internet and unfettered availability of economic information may spell doom for collectivists everywhere.  In years past, only readers of the financial newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London would be aware of the financial collapse of the statists' dream social democracies in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and, soon, Spain, and the very real non-financial consequences.  Now every grandparent with an Internet connection can alert his friends and family to the disaster that socialists wreak on national economies.

Quite a stunner, eh?

Fruit Flies Like a Banana

Sherry is fond of telling me whenever our Federal government does something that favors large businesses over small that a Progressivist government prefers a few large companies with which to deal.  She's always -- well, almost always -- right, but in such cases she's absolutely right.

It is also true that such companies prefer unionized labor, because they only have to negotiate with one party.

If you don't believe me on that latter point, read this plea from Roger Goodell -- commissioner of the National Football Monopoly... er... League -- for professional football players to be forced not to drop their union.

Some things are inarguable facts: big governments like big companies; big companies like big unions.  I suppose for the same reason that fruit flies like a banana.

Please don't tell me I forgot to say "Time flies like an arrow."  I didn't because it doesn't.  We've gone back to the early 20th century and are reliving the advance of collectivism.