No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for February 6th, 2009

2nd Annual Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin Summit

by @ 9:06. Filed under Defending the American Dream.

I do hope you reserved Saturday, March 7 on your calendar. Americans for Prosperity is holding the 2nd Annual Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin Summit at the Midwest Airlines Center. Yes, there is a bit of a cost involved at $36 for general admission and $19 for students, but the lineup of both guests and topics are well worth it.

Guests include Rep. Paul Ryan, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Wall Street Journal reporter Steve Moore, authors Herman Cain and Fred Kelly Grant, Judge (and candiate for Supreme Court Justice) Randy Koschnick, candidate for State Superintendent Rose Fernandez, and WIBA/WISN radio star Vicki McKenna.

Topics include the death tax, climate “change”, property rights, the upcoming state budget, and choice in education.

Do register for this great event as soon as possible.

Eggs on the road – next few weeks

by @ 8:56. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Most of this is assuming me being in better shape than I’m in (very sore throat, rather tired), but here’s what’s happening around town that I’m shooting for:

– Saturday 2/6, 2:30 pm-3:30 pm – Rose Fernandez listening session, Mayfair Mall, Community Room 150, 2500 N. Mayfair Rd. in Wauwatosa. Rose is a candidate for state superintendent, and the one I’m supporting.

– Tuesday 2/10, 7 pm-??? – Drinking Right, Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W. Burleigh St. in Milwaukee. If it’s the second Tuesday of the month, and the first one isn’t Election Night, it’s all about being drinking.

– Wednesday 2/11, 6:30 pm-9 pm – Oak Creek Mayoral Candidate forum, Oak Creek Community Center, 8580 S. Howell Ave. in Oak Creek. Come meet all three candidates running for Oak Creek Mayor, incumbent Dick Bolender, Alderman Mark Verhalen and Alderwoman Dimity Grabowski, and learn about the issues in the race. Side note; I do have a short questionnarie out to all three candidates and hope to have responses from all of them prior to this event.

– Tuesday 2/24, 7 pm-??? – Blog ‘n Grog, Sprizzos, 363 W. Main St. in Waukesha. It’s not as hard to find your way around downtown Waukesha as it used to be, so come on out and grog.

– Saturday 3/7, 8:30 am-6 pm – Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin, Midwest Airlines Center, 400 W. Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee. My friends at AFP are once again bringing some good guests and great conservative topics together.

In addition, I’m still working on getting to CPAC. I cannot promise that one though.

Post Office bails on Oak Creek for now

by @ 8:25. Filed under Politics - Oak Creek.

The Business Journal of Milwaukee has a rather distressing story for those of us in Oak Creek. The U.S. Postal Service has decided to delay building its planned $80 million mail processing and distribution center on the old Van Beck property at College and Pennsylvania at least a year because of their current financial condition.

Buried in that story is a real stinker of an item, especially for those that opposed the facility. The USPS bought the property from Cobalt Partners, the developer-of-record, last month for $8.1 million, after Cobalt spent $4.6 million assembling the property from the estate of the Van Becks, two other individuals, and the city. That’s right; it’s now exempt from taxes.

I sent an e-mail to Mayor Dick Bolender this morning asking for clarification on another item of interest; whether this change in ownership affects a previous agreement from Cobalt Partners to pay for part of the reconstruction of College and Pennsylvania that is scheduled to begin this year. When and if I hear back from the mayor, I’ll update this post with the answer.

Don’t Know Much About ‘Rithmatic

by @ 5:59. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

Tonight, President Obama has warned the nation of dire economic consequences if the pile of garbage called a stimulus package isn’t passed immediately.

One of Obama’s key arguments for the stimulus package is jobs. In his oped piece today he warned:

Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits.

Just three weeks ago President Obama’s team released a white paper that argued for the stimulus package.   I covered the inconsistency of positions that one of it’s authors, Christina Romer has between the white paper and her previously published postions here.

In the white paper, there is a chart that shows what will happen to unemployment with and without the stimulus package.   With the latest report of new unemployment filings it is expected that the unemployment rate will rise to 7.5%, right in line with the white paper’s expectations.

From here, the white paper projects that with a stimulus package, unemployment will continue to rise and peak at approximately 8% in the third quarter of this year.   Without the stimulus package, the paper projects that unemployment will rise, peaking at 9% in the middle of next year.

There are approximately 155 million individuals in the US workforce.   If I do my math correctly and giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, the difference between 7.5% and 9% is 1.5%.   1.5% of 155 million is about 2.3 million.  

When discussing unemployment figures economists always talk about the net number of unemployed.   The reason for this is pretty straight forward.   Even in the best economic times there are people who lose their jobs.   Contrary to other economic systems, a capitalistic one does not provide cradle to grave employment.   Nor does an employee have to work at the same job and same employer for their entire life.   People move.   If Obama was talking in the same terms that labor economists use than he is grossly exaggerating the increased unemployment that his own team says will come if their own predictions come to pass.   However, even if Obama was talking gross he’s exaggerating.  

In a typical year, an average of about 3 million people quit or change jobs in any given year.   If Obama is suggesting that this year we will now have a total of 5 million people lose their jobs, that’s an increase of 2 million.   I’m not suggesting that 2 million is nothing.   Certainly to every person impacted, and their family, it is very significant.   However, to suggest that spending $900 billion will keep 2 million people from going through the process of changing jobs…that’s a cost of $450,000 per job! We could just pay them in place for a cost that is a fraction of the $900 billion!

Obama has staked a significant portion of his political capital on this stimulus bill. It contains his first installments on all the Left believes they are owed for supporting his candidacy. Unfortunately, he took his eye off the ball and let Pelosi make a mockery of what was not a correct, but at least an honest effort by him. After the Republicans did an about face in the House and with the rapidly falling public support of the bill, Obama has resorted to an increasing scare hyperbole in an attempt to move the bill along.

Obama needs to be careful. While I don’t think the bill won’t pass, he only needs to pick off two of the weak Rinos, he will likely not get more than just that couple. After using the “give it to me or it will get waaaaaaay worse,” if the bill passes, he’d better hope that things improve and fairly soon. If not, no amount of “things were worse than we thought” explanations, will restore credibility with the public and allow him to use the scare card in the future.

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