Category archive: Government Bail-Outs

Economic nudism

By Chuck Roger • June 30th, 2011 12:00 am

The Clear Thinking blog is on hiatus and will return with new posts on July 18, 2011. Meanwhile, here’s an oldie originally posted July 1, 2009. By Chuck Rogér When the weather became unbearably cold, the leaders decided to ease the people’s pain by outlawing clothing. When the people grew hostile, the leaders led them to [...]

AARP’s drug price lies

By Chuck Roger • November 11th, 2010 2:07 am

Still a member of AARP? Why? The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) reports that an AARP analysis of prescription drugs found 8.3% higher prices in 2009. AARP surveyed 217 drugs, 211 of which increased in price over a year. AARP is intentionally misleading its employees and members by excluding generic drugs from the analysis. Calling the [...]

Barack Obama’s Desperate Search

By Chuck Roger • October 4th, 2010 12:30 am

In the beginning, Barack Obama assigned himself the mission of saving people that he saw as beaten down by capitalism and the modern world. Method was obvious to Obama. Americans must be pitted against one another, preferably along lines of race and class. The wealthy must be portrayed as villains who gather riches for the [...]

Throw the Bums Out and Watch the New Bums Very, Very Closely

By Chuck Roger • August 11th, 2010 3:05 am

The Obama Presidency crowned a century of progressivism that drove America far away from traditional social and economic values. So far away that Obama was elected partly because of promises to fundamentally transform America and redistribute wealth. But wealth redistribution is merely a tool for achieving another end. Even reality-ignoring progressives comprehend that no society [...]

Public education, lying liars, wasted money, and teachers’ unions

By Chuck Roger • August 9th, 2010 3:39 am

There are few better places to find nonsensical “thought” than in the education arena. A myth that captures a lot of attention is the falsehood that more money buys better education. The endless push by politicians for school funding hikes is nothing more than appeasement of teachers’ unions that dump millions into politicians’ campaigns. At [...]

Behold fantasy capitalism

By Chuck Roger • October 21st, 2009 3:42 am

We capitalists “subject ourselves to the brutalities of a competitive economy… because we have a collective mission: the elimination of poverty and scarcity for all humanity.” So professes Michael Maiello, Forbes magazine editor for Markets and—wait for it—Intelligent Investing. Liberals avoid acknowledging capitalism’s progress in order to free up time to invent its “brutalities.” They imagine [...]

Economic nudism

By Chuck Roger • July 1st, 2009 4:05 am

  When the weather became unbearably cold, the leaders decided to ease the people’s pain by outlawing clothing. When the people grew hostile, the leaders led them to a lifeless land and loaded them onto wooden rafts on a river of molten lava. The people warmed. At first amused—remember, they were naked—the people’s good humor evaporated [...]

Win the mind games or lose the country

By Chuck Roger • April 15th, 2009 4:19 am

  “Nice rhinoceros,” I say to the guy at the bar holding the heavy-duty leash. “Uh-huh.” “Does he bite?” “No, but he’ll ram the hell out of you.” Bill Cosby, maestro of anecdotal humor, tells stories with an appealing realness. This variant of an old routine reminds us that life’s largest facts have a way [...]

Slip-sliding away

By Chuck Roger • February 11th, 2009 4:28 am

President Obama believes that government should stop executives from being “rewarded for failure.” This from he who will “spread” successful people’s money to failure addicts. Obama tells us, “There will be time for [Wall Street] to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time.” Messiahs know [...]

And now for something completely unsettling

By Chuck Roger • February 2nd, 2009 4:30 am

A gargantuan mound of pork laid down by jackasses. The $825 billion “stimulus” which passed the House with all-Democrat “yes” votes is 12 percent stimulus and 88 percent liberal wish list according to The Wall Street Journal. Eric Cantor, House Minority Whip, points out that the bill calls for 32 new federal programs. Here are [...]

A day in the life

By Chuck Roger • January 21st, 2009 4:31 am

A woman’s voice. Chattering teeth and goosebumps. Rolling over, from the alarm radio I hear Libby Bliedheart whine about points made yesterday on KFYI’s Rightman in the Morning. Convicts surely deserve HDTVs. Rightman was callous to suggest otherwise. The Fairness Doctrine is good. Quickly, radio off, feet on floor, into hot shower. With the thermostat [...]

Oh, what tangled feel-good we weave

By Chuck Roger • December 17th, 2008 4:38 am

Imagine spending your last dollar on popcorn, watching movies on your 50-inch flat panel HDTV, and yelling at the kids to stop whining about having to raid the Whole Foods’ sample tables for meals. This would be one kind of stupid. PBS’s This Old Houseis currently chronicling the construction of a new home on the site [...]

Inattentive in class

By Chuck Roger • December 10th, 2008 4:38 am

I thought I’d snuck the sketch of the fighter jet over to Frank Reese without her seeing me do it. But, “Wham!” That wooden ruler slams my knuckles. Sister Mary Aquinas runs a tight third grade. I’ll get home late, again, because I’ll be held for detention, again, because the nun caught me screwing off, [...]

From the office of the author-elect

By Chuck Roger • December 3rd, 2008 4:40 am

Tears streaming from eyes and steam blasting from ears. I must be quite a sight. Pei Wei Asian Diner is a sort-of-Chinese restaurant where the Hispano-Chinese wok techs sometimes get the spice ratios out of whack. As I cool my pipes with some Chai iced-tea, diners are tortured by two poseur brainiacs holding forth on [...]

Integrity’s moment of truth

By Chuck Roger • October 1st, 2008 4:47 am

Feel-good ideology has dealt us a mess. And sadly, it would be hard to find more arrogant, self-serving, ineffective problem solvers than the herd currently grazing Capitol Hill. Americans are witnessing historic dishonesty and unaccountability. The actions of politicians who created the subprime mortgage fiasco and of those trying to find solutions will determine whether history paints [...]