Only 1001?

1001 Reasons to Vote Against Barack Obama.  Feel free to add to the list.

Credit to Instapundit for the link (who in turn gives credit to Bill Whittle). 

Is the Country Unraveling?

Victor Davis Hanson:  Obama took a budding recovery in June 2009, and through massive borrowing, the federal takeover of health care, new expansions of food stamps and unemployment insurance, the curtailing of oil and gas leasing on public lands, new regulations, and non-stop demagoguery of the private sector slowed the economy to a crawl. His goal seems not to restore economic growth per se but to seek an equality of result, even if that means higher unemployment and less net wealth for the poor and middle classes. Obama hinted at that in 2008 when he said he would raise capital gains taxes even if it meant less revenue, given the need for “fairness.” Indeed, equality is best achieved by bringing the top down rather than the bottom up. Nowhere is the Obama model of massive borrowing, vast increases in the size of the state, more regulations, and class warfare successful — not in California or Illinois, not in Greece, Spain, or Italy, not anywhere.

That reminds me of this video:

Income Inequality

Walter Russell Mead:  Last year the US made great strides towards a more equal society: we cut the number of millionaires by more than 100,000. According to a study from the Boston Consulting Group, 129,000 evil US millionaires rejoined the ranks of the proletariat last year as the value of their stocks, cash and other non-business and non-property assets fell below the magic number.

4.3 percent of US households still qualify as millionaires by that measure, but OWS partisans shouldn’t despair. Perhaps with another few years of stock market declines, slow or negative economic growth and low interest rates we can take another big whack out of that number.

This is, of course, exactly the wrong way to think about things. Poverty is the problem we want to fight, not an excess of wealth. And the best way to fight poverty is for the overall productivity of a society to grow. That only comes when new products, new enterprises and new and more efficient ways of doing things are entering the market — and that generally means that the people who thought up those new ideas and did the hard work to make them real are getting rich.

Hat tip Instapundit.

Annals of the One Percent

Obama flies special barber from Chicago to White House every ten to fourteen days.

I imagine that makes quite the carbon footprint.

Margaret Thatcher on Income Inequality

More from Romney's Speech Last Night

On my second listen, I caught this line from Romney's speech regarding his vision for America (link to the entire speech is two entries down):  "I see children even more successful than their parents.  Some successful even beyond their wildest dreams.  And others congratulating them for their achievement.  Not attacking them for it."   Wouldn't that be a refreshing change?  

Bill Whittle: Merchants of Despair

U.K.'s 25% Tax Hike on the 'Rich' Produces Less Revenue

What a surprise!  The Tax Professor has a roundup on this news and reactions, including the following from the Wall Street Journal:

Speaking of higher taxes (and President Obama always does), there's news from once fair Britannia.

Preliminary figures out this week show that Britain's 50% top marginal income-tax rate may have reduced tax revenue from top earners by as much as 5%, compared to the old 40% top rate. Tax revenue from those filing self-assessments due January 31 was down some £500 million versus last year. ...

What this week's numbers teach, however, is that Britain's richest taxpayers are simply shifting their incomes, or themselves, offshore, or deferring income, or otherwise arranging their affairs to avoid the confiscatory new top tax rate. Maybe that's unfair, too—the rich are usually better at protecting their assets—but it's the predictable consequence of a tax rate whose animating purposes are envy and spite.

There's a lesson here for the Obama Administration, not that it is likely to heed it any more than Mr. Cameron.

 Via Instapundit.