Palin The Hun?

So the Gibson interview with Sarah Palin has started getting into the press. A couple of thoughts, ABC's press release headline of "Palin: War Possible if Russia Invades Again" is designed to get people thinking one direction before actually listening to (or reading the transcript of ) what she said. (Quotes taken from the Chicago Tribune, I give attributes the first time I use them, Barack)

"Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help,'' Palin says in the interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson (in which she acknowledges that Georgia is not yet a NATO member, but says that, like Ukraine, it should be.)

Now, if you go to the Tribune, and read the comments, you find that a lot of folks were duped by the headline, and not the substance of the answer, in fact most missed the question (which already established IF Georgia were admitted to NATO):

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

Worse would be if they weren't duped; which would mean many folks believe that we should dump allies as soon as something we don't want to get involved in happens. Then again, considering how the left was talking about NAFTA this spring, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Read the entire excerpt from the interview, and you find out that political and economic pressure on Russia is Palin's preferred method of getting them back into line, along with McCain's idea to toss them from the G-8. But most of the lefty commenters missed that part of it, they were already too fired up over the idea of her taking us to war against Russia, even if it was a hypothetical situation conjured by the interviewer.

Many commenters are also up in arms about the idea of allowing countries like Georgia, Ukrainia, and other former Soviet satellites into NATO. Following their logic, just like in the UN Security Council, Russia should have a veto power over who is admitted to NATO.

They don't want their former satellites in it, so we shouldn't allow them. That's a foriegn policy designed to gain friends (well, friend, Russia) and influence no one. Of course that follows the whole retreat to isolationism that the left has been advocating for the last 7 years. Don't upset anyone; well anyone important like Russia or France. Screw other democracies, like Georgia, and Ukrainia, and Poland, they aren't as well heeled as the French, so they aren't important enough to get involved with.

Think of the message that sends to those countries, who's people who spent 50 years trying to get out from under the oppressive thumb of the Soviets. Now they find the group that helped get them out is going to shove them right back under that thumb, lest they tick off the Russians? So much for US and NATO credibility in Central Europe.

Reading the comments from the lefties over at the Tribune makes clear to me why when pressed on foriegn policy, the left keeps coming up short.

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Charlie Gibson, Agent of the GOP?

(Long, boring economic post. Read it, you might learn something.)

The one thing you couldn't miss since last week was the furor over the debate on ABC. To read liberal blogs you'd think Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopulos are probably McCain staffers working under deep cover for ABC.

To the liberals defense, they probably did spend a little too much of the debate on the "gotcha" stuff that's been running around the news lately on Bosnia, Rev. Wright, etc. While they shouldn't have ignored the subjects, they could have cut that part short.

The second biggest uproar, though is over the question, and follow up, to Obama on capital gains taxes. EJ Dionne over at the Washington Post said Gibson "sounded like a lobbyist for tax cuts for the wealthy".

For those who don't know, you can download all of the IRS tax data and look at the numbers yourself. What you find is that not only with capital gains, but income taxes, the lower rates generate more, not less income, generally after a 1 year drop off.

Obama's answer that he wants to raise rates so hedge fund managers pay more is a joke. Kind of like the Alternative Minimum Tax of the 60's, used to catch 14 millionaires then, that 20 million paid this year, Obama's tax hike would hit 100 million tax payers, 50% of whom made less than 75K last year. That's only the direct hit. Not bad, to get a few thousand managers to pay more taxes we hike them on 100 million others.

The truth is, that the tax hike hits more than 100 million. If you have a 401(k), IRA, etc, you will pay it also, just not directly. This is what confuses the folks defending the tax hike. Capital Gains don't show up as a tax on those, you pay standard income tax rates on your withdrawls.

But someone does pays capital gains on the investments in those accounts. The funds companies pay that rate. That means that you, the holder of an IRA get less money as a return on investment and pay a higher service fee on the account to pay those taxes. Loaded mutual funds will see higher loads and lower returns for the same reason. But since they are "hidden taxes" some folks claim you don't pay them.

The other arguement on capital gains is that it reduces available investment income. Those hedge funds and venture capital funds, which are used to start up businesses, suffer under higher rates. That tightens money supplies (which is already a problem) for folks trying to start or expand a business.

Gerald Jackson wrote a great piece about how the Laffer Curve works last September. The Laffer Curve says that lower tax rates increase tax receipts due to the availability of income to invest. It's been a counter intuitive piece of fact for Democrats since JFK died. Kennedy cut tax rates to increase productivity and the economy, it worked. But since then the left has decided that imperical evidence be damned, higher taxes are needed.

Jackson applied it specifically to capital gains, and the availibility of capital to start businesses. When the rates gone down our economy expands, when it goes up, that expansion slows, or stops.

The reason is simple, but again counter-intuitive to those who refuse to believe data. You see, capitalists don't take their earnings and stuff them in a mattress so they can roll around in it late at night. When an investors make money they generally re-invest it into something else, to make more money.

Higher capital gains rates make less money available in two ways. The obvious is the extra money going to the government, not being reinvested. The less obvious, but proven true, is that the number of transactions that incur capital gains taxes goes down as the rates go up. Investors don't sell as many stocks to realize the gain with higher rates. Since the higher rate causes the rate of return to fall, they end up holding stocks longer, and therefore don't have "reinvestment" capital available as often. This prevents folks who need that capital to start or expand a business to have a more difficult time finding it. That affects you if you need a job, or want to go into business yourself.

For those who had fits about Gibson's return to the original question, as EJ Dionne did, get over it. He did what a moderator should do, he called BS on the answer. If more moderators would do it, and ask for answers tied to facts, not sound bites, we might all learn a little more about our politicians.

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Taking Aim At Obama?

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post spent a good chunk of today's "Media Notes" column looking at the treatment of the press towards Barrack Obama, and found that for the most part he's been given a pass by them until recently. He also points out that many stories about Obama failed to gain traction the first time around, or got little coverage for weeks.

While Obama's folks claim this just isn't true, the Center for Media and Public Affairs studied newscasts from ABC, NBC and CBS and found that 83% of the stories about Obama from December 16th-January 27th were "positive" stories, while only 53% about Hillary Clinton fell into that category.

The same study found that; and this has to bug liberals; Fox News has been the most balanced outlet for news about candidates. It has also had the best coverage of actual positions, instead of the beauty pagent aspect of the election.

The previous study by CMPA (link is a PDF file) found similar results in the period from October 1st through December 15th, with Fox being the "fair and balanced" news outlet, having a 50/50 split on positive and negative stories on all candidates, and the most substance on issues.

The CMPA study doesn't look into newspapers, but with the exception of the Chicago papers little coverage nationwide has been given to the Tony Rezko trial that starts today. And even in the Chicago papers much more attention is being paid to Rezko's dealings with Governor Blagojevich than connections to Obama. This though, should be expected, since the focus of the trial is on the "Pay for Play" system that appeared to be in effect at the Governors office.

That could start changing as the Rezko trial gets underway, as it's widely thought that a number of witnesses will mention Obama in their testimony. It will be interesting to see the next CMPA study of positives and negatives and if the trial affects the newscasts.

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