From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama is previewing his ideas for job creation and economic growth at a Labor Day rally with union members in Detroit.

Obama’s speech at the annual event sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO was serving as a dress rehearsal for the jobs address he’s delivering to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night.

The president’s appearance follows last Friday’s dismal jobs report, which showed that employers added no jobs in August. It was the first time since 1945 that the government reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, held steady at 9.1 percent.

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Accusations are flying in the race to fill Anthony Weiner’s vacated seat in the 9th district of New York.

Republican Bob Turner, whose internal polls show a dead heat with Democrat David Weprin, claims that his staff has caught several individuals attempting to spy on his campaign. Turner’s campaign released the following photograph of one alleged mole:

According to Turner press secretary Bill O’Reilly (not that Bill O’Reilly), the photo depicts “a Weprin staffer who tried to ‘volunteer’ for Turner.” The Turner campaign claims it has caught four attempted moles, including one posing as a “college reporter.”

Weprin, speaking to the local NBC affiliate yesterday, failed to deny the charge, stating only that he did not know about any alleged spying effort, and was not responsible in any case: “I can’t control who goes to everything.”

WNBC also captured Turner’s campaign manager attempting to hijack a Weprin press conference–albeit less surreptitiously:

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss complaints by big labor’s James P. Hoffa about the patriotism of American companies, the role labor plays in today’s business climate and whether Obamanomics have made the economy worse.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Union chief calls Apple ‘unpatriotic’ for not hiring more workers
Labor unions adjust to new reality under Obama
Have shrinking union rolls eroded the middle class?
Did Obama Make It Worse?

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Being the world’s self-appointed defender of so-called tax havens has led to some rather bizarre episodes.

The bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development threatened to have me thrown in a Mexican jail for the horrible crime of standing in the public lobby of a hotel and giving advice to low-tax jurisdictions.

On a more amusing note, my efforts to defend tax havens made me the beneficiary of grade inflation and I was listed as the 244th most important person in the world of global  finance – even higher than George Soros and Paul Krugman.

But if that makes it seem as if the battle is full of drama and (exaggerated) glory, that would be a gross exaggeration. More than 99 percent of my time on this issue is consumed by the difficult task of trying to convince policy makers that tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy should be celebrated rather than persecuted.

Sort of like convincing thieves that it’s a good idea for houses to have alarm systems.

And it means I’m also condemned to the never-ending chore of debunking left-wing attacks on tax havens. The big-government crowd viscerally despises these jurisdictions because tax competition threatens the ability of politicians to engage in class warfare/redistribution policies.

Here’s a typical example. Paul Vallely has a column, entitled “There is no moral case for tax havens,” in the UK-based Independent.

To determine whether tax havens are immoral, let’s peruse Mr. Vallely’s column. It begins with an attack on Ugland House in the Cayman Islands.

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The Labor Day holiday is always a time for union bosses and the media to reflect on the role that unions play in society. Not surprisingly, with a mere 11.9% of America’s workers unionized today (6.9% in the private sector), between the unionized media and press releases issued by union communications departments, the majority of stories about Labor Day center on what used to be or the current ills ailing the moribund labor movement.

Mr. Thompson Will Be Speaking…

Later this week, President Obama will be speaking on the state of the economy and the heretofore less-than-stellar performance of his efforts to create jobs. He will, undoubtedly, engage in more class warfare, Bush and GOP bashing and anti-Wall St. demagoguery before he calls for more spending, higher taxes and “shared sacrifice” (aka, his vision of W.T.F.). The one thing he will likely not be talking about is how his union appointees National Labor Relations Board and Department of Labor are helping unions destroy the very job creators they so desperately need.

Uncompetitive Unions.

Unions and unionized workplaces have been declining for decades. While much of the commentary often focuses on the shrinking percentage of union members—less than 10% of union-represented workers ever voted for unionization—very few have focused on the shrinking number of unionized workplaces that has occurred over the last several decades. Moreover, of those who have written about the declining number of unionized workplaces, far fewer have focused on the job-killing effects that unions have on private businesses that compete in a free marketplace (both globally and domestically). (more…)

Sarah Palin weighed in with a very important point in the policy debate about the role of government. Her Saturday speech, among other things, took a swipe at the country’s dilemma of booming crony capitalism:

[T]he permanent political class …[use] taxpayer dollars… to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys.

Amen. Immediately, the media and other Democrats, as well as some Republicans, pointed out that this label sticks to Texas Governor Rick Perry just as it does to President Obama and that, assuming Perry is the Republican nominee, it will have limited resonance in the 2012 debate.

There is an element of truth to this, though that seems to be as much an effort to dodge discussion (or Obama’s record) as it is to accurately represent matters.

First, about the phrase, ‘crony capitalism.’ After addressing it recently on television someone emailed me and asked if I would please deploy the term ‘cronyism’ since, after all, this is just corrupt abuse of taxpayer money and not at all capitalism. I get that. But you ride the waves that come in, and rhetorically, this practice is “crony capitalism” and will remain so barring a full airing of the practice’s true extent and insidiousness.

That Perry, like it seems most politicians, has some things to answer for on this front seems hardly enough to neuter Obama’s awful exposure to the charge (see, e.g., his many waivers from ObamaCare going 50% to union members who only represent about 7% of the workforce, as well as “Obama’s Enron“, the $535 million green jobs boondoggle Solyndra).

It is axiomatic that crony capitalism and similar corruption is rampant, in many forms, among businesses that would not exist but-for largesse transferred to them, by politicians, from taxpayers. Such industries, and the practice of propping them up in the name of one or another fads or theories, invite this.

The increasingly popular “green jobs” schemes — the White House claims more than $80 billion of the $800-plus billion ’stimulus’ went to these, whatever their  definition encompasses — are therefore rife with moral hazard. After all, they exist for reasons other than their economic s or their merit; their pitch is “unless you give me this preference, mandate or bag of money why, I’ll disappear”.

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In honor of labor, instead of taking the day off, do some kind of work, somewhere today.

From the Associated Press:

Asian stock markets took a beating Monday after U.S. job creation ground to a halt in August, reviving fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average was down 1.7 percent at 8,797.89 with sentiment also undermined by the persistent strength of the yen against the dollar, which hurts exporters.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 2.2 percent to 4,148.50 and South Korea’s Kospi slid 3 percent to 1,811.44. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.2 percent to 19,768.09. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and mainland China were also down.

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If you thought the class warfare tactic was being used successfully by the Progressive Left to instigate strife between the upper and lower classes in the United States you need to re-examine what you think you are seeing. With declarations by three Congressional Black Caucus Progressives that target the TEA Party, we witness a pathetic attempt by special interest Progressive Leftists to re-package the contrived charge of racism against what is essentially Middle Class America.

Over the past two weeks we have experienced some incredibly caustic declarations by three Congressional Black Caucus members: US Rep. Maxine Waters (P-CA), US Rep. Frederica Wilson (P-FL) and US Rep. Andre Carson (P-IN). All three, evidently, have little respect for their own President who, just after the shooting of US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), called for “toning down the rhetoric.”

On August 20, 2011, while speaking to a friendly audience at a Los Angeles “community summit,” Maxine Waters, a member of both the Progressive and Congressional Black Caucuses in the US House said:

“I’m not afraid of anybody…This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to Hell.”

On August 22, 2011, at a Miami, FL, town hall meeting, Frederica Wilson, again, a member of both the Progressive and Congressional Black Caucuses in the US House said:

“Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party…The Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president.”

Also in attendance was one Jesse Jackson of Rainbow/PUSH, a community organizing group that pressures institutions – both financial and otherwise – into doing things that would otherwise be considered ridiculous, like offering low-interest housing loans to unqualified buyers and coercing municipalities into hiring lower-scoring minority applicants to positions regarding public safety in the name of “diversity.” Rev. Jackson, a leader in the community organizing movement of social justice before he was eclipsed by one Barack Obama, compared the TEA Party to opposition to the civil-rights movement. “The Tea Party is a new name on an old game…Dr. King fought a ‘tea party’ in Alabama.”

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Ouch. Maureen Dowd in today’s The New York Times:

The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot.

His Republican rivals for 2012 have gone to town on the Labor Day weekend news of zero job growth, using the same line of attack Hillary used in 2008: Enough with the big speeches! What about some action?

Polls show that most Americans still like and trust the president; but they may no longer have faith that he’s a smarty-pants who can fix the economy.

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In this May 26, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama, with Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, looks at a solar panel, during a tour of Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility, in Fremont, Calif. Solyndra received a $535 million loan from the U.S. government has announced layoffs of 1,100 workers and plans to file for bankruptcy. (WaPo)

Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government.
iWatch News reported, via Free Republic:

The i Watch News investigation confirmed that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda, through stimulus money, government contracts, or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development.

Oklahoma billionaire investor George Kaiser is one. A longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of a company that in March of 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee [19] from DOE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits to the White House in the months before he was awarded the contract. Kaiser has not responded to interview requests from iWatch News.

This doesn’t look very good considering it was widely known that Solyndra was in deep economic trouble in 2010 and had negative cash flows since its inception.

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As the nation tunes in to hear President Barack Obama’s “Jobs Speech” this Thursday, it would be instructive to learn how the last bundle of Keynesian billions were spent on those fabled “Green Jobs” that were supposed to save our economy in 2009.

Meet Solyndra, the latest Darwinian example of how not to run a capitalist economy.  The President’s magic bullet to save America’s job disaster and help “Win the Future” was to be a whole host of “Green” businesses designed to take advantage of the enormous market demand for solar energy, electric cars and high speed rail.  Of course, since that demand did not actually exist, Obama spent an additional bundle of billions to provide incentives for businesses and individuals to purchase the white elephant products he spent to build.

Solyndra was one of the crown jewels in the President’s plan.  He even made a high-profile appearance at the San Francisco factory complete with hard hat tour, and speech to adoring workers who were paid to sit and look thankful for their Green Jobs.  Those workers, 1,000 of them, are all part of the Obama Unemployed now as Solyndra shut its doors and declared bankruptcy.

The green workers got pink slips and no sign of a severance package.

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Last week, I had a post wherein I discussed the fact that the DOJ had re-assigned Kenneth Melson, Acting Director of the ATF, and accepted the resignation of Dennis Burke, U.S. Attorney (Arizona), in hopes that Fast and Furious could be swept under the rug.

In other words, can’t we let bygones be bygones?

My position then, which I’m stating again now, is “no,” we can’t just look the other way on Fast and Furious. It has cost too much in human life and literally broken too many laws to simply be forgotten.

And since my last post on the topic so much more has been learned that even CBS News is now wondering how far up the chain of command the cover-up reaches. We know for sure it reaches the White House, but who is it connected to there?

According to CBS, there were three people in the White House who received email updates on Fast and Furious. One of these three, Kevin O’Reilly, has long been known to have received updates from the ATF’s William Newell. But news of the other two – Dan Restrepo, senior Latin American advisory; and Greg Gatjanis, a national security official – only surfaced days ago.

What this means is that the Obama administration has some explaining to do.

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Sarah Palin arrived to a packed house in the farm-themed “Machine Shed Restaurant” in Urbandale, IA Friday night.  The ever-amassing crowd began arriving at about 6:30 p.m. to congregate and socialize with fellow “Palinistas” from across the country.  Supporters stood around talking and catching up, many long time online-friends were meeting for the first time in person.  The atmosphere was more like a family reunion than a political gathering.  There were children playing, doting parents, young professionals, and the elderly maneuvering through the crowd with the assistance of canes.  I encountered people like myself and my family, who had driven in from Dallas, TX, those who had flown in from Virginia, some who hailed from Florida, Georgia natives, Iowa hometown fans, and even a woman from the president’s neck of the woods, Hawaii.

Sarah Palin at the Restoring America TEA Party - Photo by Chet Nichols

The meet and greet went on for an hour and a half when the front entry way suddenly began to buzz.  When the camera crews darted for the doors, all eyes turned to see that those “Guess who’s coming to dinner” rumors were true…Sarah was in the building.  She had a twinkle in her eye as she greeted those whose lucky positioning had placed them in the right place at the right time.  She shook hands and held mini-conversations with her loyal supporters.  She asked people where they were from and asked about their families…and she waited for the answers.

I spent some time with the Governor, but it was my 4 year old daughter who got Sarah’s attention that day.

When I introduced her to my daughter, Sarah had genuine adoration on her face.  She asked my daughter her name.  She was shy, so I answered, “Etta.”  She said, “Ooh, that’s a pretty name, Etta!  How old are you?”  Etta spoke up then and told her that she was 4.  I told Sarah that Etta had been asking if she could play with “Hyper.”  And with that Sarah laughed, looked at Etta and said, “We call her ‘Hyper Piper’ too!”  We chatted for a moment or two more, before she was beckoned away.

Palin continued to make her way through the crowd to the dining room which was already full.  She worked the room and visited with those who had come out to join together to support her in her endeavors.  Unlike the typical “politician,” Palin held real conversations with those present.

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Today, in 1957, Ford introduced the Edsel. Think Chevy Volt.

Today in Iowa, home of that all-important Caucus (hint-hint?), Governor Palin spoke as clearly as she ever has on a subject near and dear to my heart and one I’ve been waiting to hear from a serious GOP contender. Palin calls it, quite appropriately, “crony capitalism,” where the moneyed and powerful receive preferential treatment from our political class in exchange for the financial support that puts and keeps the political class in charge of the rest of us.

This is the vicious circle currently tanking our economy and Palin’s own words sum it up best:

“Corporate welfare is just socialism for the very wealthy.”

Indeed.

And while Governor Palin rightfully trained most of her rhetorical fire on President Obama (the most corporatist president of my lifetime), she also took on Republican members of that “permanent political class” who selfishly dole out our hard-earned money to those who keep them in power.

This is nothing more than a racket and it’s a disgusting one at that that explains why deficits and wasteful spending occurs regardless of which party is in charge — it is, as the Governor made clear, the disease that’s killing our free market economy. But she has a cure that will both cut these insidious ties and create jobs: end loopholes, end corporate welfare, end bailouts (amen) AND end the corporate income tax. In other words: Corporate America — we’ll get out of your way but you are now on your own.

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Chatter began to emerge on Thursday about the unique treatment received by the bankruptcy-declaring Solyndra, a government-dependent maker of solar panels whose scheme, shaped somewhere between a pyramid and a trapezoid, was described in the Washington Post no less the following way:

“You make something in a factory and it costs $6, you sell it for $3, but you really, really need to sell it for $1.50 to be competitive,” Lynch said of Solyndra. “It was an insane business model. The numbers just don’t work, and they never did.”

And yet, as the LA Times editorialized:

“Solyndra was the first company to be awarded a federal loan guarantee under the stimulus, worth $535 million. Taxpayers are likely to end up on the hook for much if not all of that amount, a highly embarrassing development for President Obama because he was among the company’s biggest cheerleaders. He visited its Fremont plant in May 2010 even though PricewaterhouseCoopers had weeks earlier raised doubts about its plans for an initial public offering by questioning whether it could continue as a going concern. …”

Also, “Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal — and assessed its risk to taxpayers — before signing off.”

Given the obvious rat-hole nature of the lost half-billion, LAT piquantly inquired, “is Obama using stimulus funds to reward his political contributors?” By all means, follow the odor of the ties between major Solyndra backer, key Obama fundraiser George Kaiser of Tulsa.

But there is another question about what political deal may have been involved in the Solyndra boondoggle.

Solyndra resides in Fremont, California, which in turn rests within the then-cozy confines of California’s 13th Congressional District, represented by Fortney “Pete” Stark. As chairman of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee during Obama’s push for Obamacare, Stark was critical to Obama’s signature step in ‘fundamentally transforming America.’

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In 2005, Kelo v. City of New London made eminent domain infamous. The widely reviled Supreme Court ruling gave the go ahead for the city of New London to use eminent domain for taking private property in order that it be given to a private company for “economic development.”

The public response was one of outrage. Facing the potential wrath of voters,  politicians across the country moved to add new protections against such abusive seizures. But that wasn’t enough to save the homes of the folks in New London, whose property never would be developed. Pfizer, the intended beneficiary of the land theft, walked away years ago from their development plans.

Now, to add new insult to injury, the vacant lot is a dump. Literally.

Following hurricane Irene, the city designated the site as a place to dump storm debris, and citizens can be seen doing just that in this video on the local paper’s website.

Doesn’t that make you feel all warm inside? The Supreme Court reassured us in Kelo that the government orchestrated theft “would be executed pursuant to a “carefully considered” development plan.” What they forgot to mention is that careful consideration from politicians is worth about as much as the city’s new debris dump, which is to say: diddly squat.

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