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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Mary Ann Glendon to discuss her book which argues that more people should read the work of classical thinkers to better understand how political theories intersects with political realities.

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:

Buy The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt on Amazon
The Forum and the Tower at Oxford Press
Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard

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The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Last week, Capitol Confidential reported that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is considering hiking taxes on non-cigarette tobacco products in an effort to bring in more revenue from tobacco users who have apparently rejected heavily-taxed cigarettes in favor of cheaper options such as rolling their own or using products such as snuff.

On Monday, it emerged the Cook County Board endorsed Preckwinkle’s tobacco tax proposal by a 10-7 vote.  The Cook County Board is set to take a final vote on the proposed budget on Friday.

Now, it is being reported that separate to this proposed tax hike, Chicago aldermen are looking at their own tobacco tax hike. From the Chicago Trubune:

Two aldermen looking for last-minute ways to head off painful budget cuts proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel floated the idea Wednesday of extending the city’s cigarette tax to other tobacco products.

Ald. Matthew O’Shea, 19th, and Leslie Hairston, 5th, brought up that option at a City Council meeting in an effort to soften spending cuts at city libraries, mental health clinics and the 911 center.

[...]

Aldermen and administration officials weren’t sure how much new money could be raised by broadening the tobacco tax — as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle plans to do so she can raise $12 million for the county next year.

(more…)

With Facebook being beseiged by pornographic images of all sorts, some are pointing the finger at anonymous. Nothing else to do besides target a judge, I guess.

But numerous reports are now pointing to a threat made by Anonymous, a threat to attack Facebook using a powerful “Guy Fawkes virus” they developed. According to the hacktivist group, it’s a highly sophisticated work that takes control of your Facebook account and spreads to your friends’ accounts without you actually being logged in.

Wow! Those Tea Partiers, I mean, Occupiers sure sound like some violent folks, bitterly  clinging to makeshift weapons? Who would have guessed?

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway filed a motion on behalf of the city today opposing a court order requiring the NYPD to allow Occupy Wall Street demonstrators back into Zuccotti Park. In filing the motion, Holloway asserted that “people who have a known history of violent interaction with the police” have been gathering in the park, and “makeshift items” that he said could be used as weapons, “such as cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside, had been observed among the occupiers’ possessions.” He also noted that after the October 1st Brooklyn Bridge march, “knives, mace and hypodermic needles were observed discarded on the roadway.”

One and done for Obama? Keep hope alive! And keep the poll numbers down.

In comparison to recent incumbents running for re-election, Obama’s 46% approval ranks above only Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford – who both lost their re-election bids – in November of the year before an election. Most incumbents who were re-elected had an approval rating above 50% a year before the election.

Meanwhile, the Cain Train has been losing steam, with Newt picking up at the same time.

New polling from the Washington Post-ABC News shows that Cain’s negative ratings among Republicans have more than doubled since mid-October. And, a new CNN survey showed Cain dropping 11 points in a hypothetical national Republican primary ballot in less than a month.

(more…)

Wall Street Journal opinion writer Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. has cavalierly dismissed the explosive congressional insider trading scandal uncovered this week by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer and 60 Minutes.

Jenkins calls the fact that members of Congress are abusing their political power and knowledge to make millions trading on Wall Street a “non-scandal”–and then concedes the point:

What’s right about the furor over congressional “insider trading” is the sense that congressmen let themselves behave in ways they wouldn’t permit for the rest of us, indeed would denounce as greedy.

Jenkins goes on to argue, in elitist tones, that “CBS and Mr. Schweizer are taking advantage of the audience’s naivete” and that he is “nonplussed” and “mildly contemptuous over the newest fuss” about the nation’s outrage.

Yet Jenkins’s response should come as no surprise; he is a well-known opponent of insider trading laws, and apparently has a soft spot for those accused of the crime.

In a November 24, 2010, Wall Street Journal column, Jenkins made clear his disdain for insider trading statutes:

Beating a dead horse in argument is frowned upon, but sometimes it takes a good thrashing to reveal the absurdity beneath the surface of reasonability.  So it has been with the evolution of insider trading law…Insane is what happened to insider trading law over the past generation…Insane is treating the information as the offender.  Insane is seeking serially to expand the circle of people who can be criminalized for trading on it, as if it were desirable to keep accurate information out of stock prices.

At times, Jenkins’s skepticism of insider trading law reaches near-alarmist proportions:

The day is coming when a plumber will be prosecuted for trading on what another plumber heard through the wall when fixing the pipe in an apartment neighboring the apartment of somebody who knows somebody who works at an investment bank.

During the insider trading trial of Galleon hedge fund group founder Raj Rajaratnam, Jenkins wrote an April 2011 piece that was dismissive of the prosecution’s case.  The next month, Mr. Rajaratnam was found guilty on all 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud. (more…)

From TPM Muckraker:

The Secret Service searched Occupy D.C. on Monday for a man suspected of firing bullets at the White House on Friday, one of which was stopped by the building’s ballistic glass.

Protestor Ralph Wittenberg told TPM on Tuesday evening that authorities came through “searching for a so-called terrorist who shot at the White House, with no warrant, they went into everybody’s tents.”

(more…)

Ohio’s government unions claim to represent simple, positive principles. Good jobs. Workers’ rights. Progress. The reforms in Issue 2 were voted down because union bosses warned dramatically, expensively, and dishonestly how dark Ohio would be with elected officials controlling local governments. If voters realized union power leads to higher taxes, they may not have been as quick to torpedo reform.

The agitators at the top of the union pyramid can now justify for awhile longer “earning” six figures by taking it directly from public employees’ paychecks. However, the scare tactics that worked for Issue 2 weren’t so effective when local voters considered higher tax levies. This means the gravy train will leave the rails a bit faster than expected – but the unions have a solution!

Months before Governor Kasich balanced an estimated $8 billion deficit without raising taxes, unions were demanding we cough up more money to fund their unsustainable benefits and backwards policies. Unions rallied for higher taxes despite a state and local taxation trend that looks like this:

Somewhere along the way Ohio’s “safety net” wound up around our necks, which isn’t especially comfortable for those of us unwilling or unable to flee. It’s hard to argue Ohio’s taxes should be higher, so the unions and fellow Progressives focus on attacking Governor Kasich:

1. It’s Kasich’s fault for discarding the Strickland school funding model! (Never mind that most districts are in the red, not just a handful on the margins.)
2. It’s Kasich’s fault for cutting local spending in the state budget! (Ignore those Strickland-era forecasts that prove local deficits have been on the horizon for years.)

In both cases the alternative is cloaked in Obamaesque euphemism about needing a “balanced approach,” if an alternative is mentioned at all. There’s not enough state money because of evil Republicans and racist mathematics, and Ohio’s union bosses need us to refill the tank. Until we do, they’ll force local governments to slash jobs and services, with the occasional face-saving concession for the sake of the Progressive cause. Over the next few months I’ll highlight districts forced into layoffs by untenable union contracts!

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Alan Blinder has a distinguished resume. He’s a professor at Princeton and he served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

So I was interested to see he authored an attack on the flat tax – and I was happy after I read his column. Why? Well, because his arguments are rather weak. So anemic that it makes me think there’s actually a chance to get rid of America’s corrupt internal revenue code.

There are two glaring flaws in his argument. First, he demonstrates a complete lack of familiarity with the flat tax and seemingly assumes that tax reform simply means imposing one rate on the current system.

Here’s some of what he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column.

Many useful steps could be taken to simplify the personal income tax. But, contrary to much misleading rhetoric, flattening the rate structure isn’t one of them. The truth is that 100% of the complexity inheres in the definition of taxable income, which takes up millions of words in the tax laws. None inheres in the progressive rate structure. If you don’t believe that, consider the fact that the corporate income tax is virtually flat once a corporation passes a paltry $75,000 in taxable income. Is it simple? Back to the personal tax. Figuring out your taxable income can be quite an effort. But once that is done, most taxpayers just look up their tax bill on an IRS-provided table. Those with incomes above $100,000 must perform a simple calculation that involves multiplying two numbers together and adding a third. A flat tax with an exemption would require precisely the same sort of calculation. The net reduction in complexity? Zero.

I can understand how an average person might think the flat tax is nothing more than applying a single tax rate to the current system, but any public finance economist must know that the plan devised by Professors Hall and Rabushka completely rips up the current tax system and implements a new system based on one tax rate with no double taxation and no loopholes.

(more…)

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official.

It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out.

The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle.

Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. When Obama won the White House, Wagle was installed at the Department of Energy (DOE), advising on energy grants.

From an objective vantage point, investing taxpayer monies in BrightSource was a risky proposition at the time. In 2010, BrightSource, whose largest shareholder is Kennedy’s VantagePoint Partners, was up to its eyes in $1.8 billion of debt obligations and had lost $71.6 million on its paltry $13.5 million of revenue.

Even before BrightSource rattled its tin cup in front of Obama’s DOE, the company made it known publicly that its survival hinged on successfully completing the Ivanpah Solar Electrical System, which would become the largest solar plant in the world, on federal lands in California. (more…)

Tonight, all is quiet on the #Occupy front.

This is a solid campaign move by Perry. Newt Gingrich is coming on strong in the polls as the anti-Romney, but the fact that the former Speaker is an old-school Beltway insider is a vulnerability. If Perry hopes to revitalize his campaign and get back in the race, it’s essential he plays up his outsider status, and he seems to be doing just that.  The anti-establishment outrage has reached a fever pitch since the explosive “60 Minutes” report on Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out, and Perry is the first GOP candidate to try to own that sentiment.

***

BETTENDORF, Iowa (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Tuesday that if elected he would end lifetime appointments for federal judges and slash the pay for federal lawmakers, effectively turning Congress into a part-time institution.

In a speech laying out how he would “uproot and overhaul” Washington, the Texas governor suggested that his Washington outsider background—unlike some of his GOP rivals—would help him succeed at changing the city’s culture. Changing Washington also was one of President Barack Obama’s goals and he’s had no success on that front since taking office.

“Unique to the Republican field, I have never been an establishment figure, have never served in Congress or part of an administration and have never been a paid lobbyist,” Perry said. “My career has been that of a Washington outsider.”

Until he jumped into the presidential race in August, Perry spent his entire political career in his home state of Texas.

The plan Perry rolled out at a heating and cooling company in Iowa also calls for requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress for any tax increases, halting all proposed federal regulations and criminalizing insider trading by Washington lawmakers. (more…)

“One of Barack Obama’s great gifts is the ability to say things that are absolutely absurd and make them sound not only plausible, but inspiring.”

President Obama is spreading poverty – not wealth – around the country by attacking the people who are creating wealth in the first place. As economist Thomas Sowell argues, raising taxes only encourages people to keep their wealth and jobs overseas. Barack Obama’s belief that individuals in certain professions should be taxed less than others is nothing more than clever ludicrousness.

In our recent episode, Thomas Sowell, Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, discusses everything from his life, the President, and class warfare to similarities between Marxists and Occupy Wall Street protestors. In this interview, Sowell reflects on the leading Republicans of our time and the Tea Party’s ability to restore sanity in Washington next year.

Has Barack Obama’s time in office surprised you? Sowell isn’t surprised at all – he explains that “Barack Obama has followed policies which have ruined the economy. He has followed foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies.” While Obama takes credit for killing Osama bin Laden, in reality special ops forces found and killed him based on interrogations at Guantanamo.  Interrogations which the President vehemently opposed throughout his campaign.

To learn more about Thomas Sowell’s political insights and his recent book, The Thomas Sowell Reader, watch the full interview below.

(more…)

Supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement took to Twitter to enlist the help of hacker group Anonymous in targeting New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman within minutes of his ruling that Occupy Wall Street protesters could not return to camp in Zuccotti Park.

The movants have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park, along with their tents, structures, generators, and other installations to the exclusion of the owner’s reasonable rights and duties to maintain Zuccotti Park, or to the rights to public access of others who might wish to use the space safely. Neither have the applicants shown a right to a temporary restraining order that would restrict the City’s enforcement of law so as to promote public health and safety.

This screencap was soon followed by another supporter’s Tweeting of the judge’s home phone number – see below.

The judge’s phone number has been redacted from this Tweet.

(more…)

We have oft spoken of how ridiculous Government General Motors (GM) has continued to become since receiving $50 billion of our bailout money.

And of the Barack Obama Administration’s puffing up for political and campaign purposes GM’s alleged “recovery” from its bankruptcy.

(A bankruptcy, by the way, that could have just as easily transpired without our $50 billion.  But I digress….)

It’s not really much of a recovery when one considers the fact that GM’s thus far $7.4 billion in 2011 profits is greatly fostered and augmented by the Obama Administration’s years-on-end GM federal tax exemption.

A Crony Socialist boon to the tune of as much as $45.4 billion.

(How’s that for federal deficit reduction?  Is absolutely nothing at all GM’s “fair share?”)

GM’s is an even less impressive “recovery” when we remember that We the People still own just over 500 million shares of GM stock.  On which to break even we need to sell at $53 per – and it is currently trading at around $23.

Which sets up We the Taxpayers for a more than $15 billion loss.

Not quite the GM “success” President Obama is repeatedly touting on the Trail to 2012.

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

A New York judge has upheld the city’s dismantling of the Occupy Wall Street encampment, saying that the protesters’ first amendment rights don’t entitle them to camp out indefinitely in the plaza.

Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman on Tuesday denied a motion by the demonstrators seeking to be allowed back into the park with their tents and sleeping bags.

Police cleared out the protesters in a nighttime sweep early Tuesday. The judge upheld the city’s effective eviction of the protesters after an emergency appeal by the National Lawyers Guild.

(more…)

From CBSNews:

A bill to stop “insider trading” in Congress is gaining momentum with two new Senate sponsors.

Sens. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., today are introducing the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2011, which would prohibit members or employees of Congress, as well as executive branch employees, from using nonpublic information obtained through their public service for investing or any attempt at personal financial gain.

Like everyone else, members of Congress are subject to current insider trading laws. However, current insider trading laws do not apply to nonpublic information about current or upcoming congressional activity — that’s because members of Congress aren’t technically obligated to keep that information confidential.

(more…)

Reports of Big Labor support come in as NYC police act to remove occupiers from Zucotti Park. Reports indicate as many as 70 people have been arrested.

Sarah Maslin Nir of the New York Times has tweeted a couple of photos of the dawn-light general assembly in Foley Square. More worryingly, someone has brought along their conga drums.

There was confused discussion this morning about union support arriving at one of the proposed general assembly locations. The general assembly ended up taking place at Foley Square, and it appears union members are beginning to arrive. Derek Grate, political coordinator at 1199 SEIU, said he was at the square “just to support the First Amendment rights of the people”.

Somewhere between Libya and public sector unions, Herman Cain executed a face plant in the crater resulting from his self-inflicted campaign implosion. How it might impact his already plummeting polling numbers remains to be seen in a very, very strange political year.

Herman Cain came out in support for collective bargaining for wages and other benefits for public sector employees at the Journal Sentinel. And then there is this video on Libya. I think it’s much worse than the Perry flub in the debate.

Given Cain’s likely collapse and Newt’s recent rise, like clock work, the opposition research has already begun to flow. Remain seated, the roller coaster ride of the 2012 GOP primary may not be over yet, folks.

With Newt Gingrich emerging as serious contender, some Republicans are questioning his fitness for a general election campaign by seizing on comments the former speaker made in 2007 about Hispanics. Making the case against bi-lingual education at a National Federation of Republican Women event, Gingrich said children should be taught “the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry outlined a government overhaul plan today that has zero chance of passing Congress. Still, its a good perspective on his governing principles and a great challenge for the other campaigns:

The plan Perry rolled out at a heating and cooling company in Iowa also calls for requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress for any tax increases and halting all proposed federal regulations.

(more…)

From BusinessInsider:

The fact that many members of Congress appear to have traded on non-public information in their personal brokerage accounts during the financial crisis is outrageous.

But since this bombshell news broke on Sunday night, the excuse has been that, however ridiculous it may sound, insider trading is legal for Congress.

This same assertion has been repeated for years, every time someone observes that Congress members do much better in their personal stock trading than average investors do. Unlike average Joes, the pundits explain, Congress has exempted itself from insider-trading laws, so Congress-people are allowed to trade on private information that they gather in the course of their work while other Americans can’t.

But at least one law professor argues that this is just not true.

(more…)

With a new congressional insider trading scandal unfolding in Washington, another name has been added to the hit parade:  U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

In the new blockbuster tell-all Throw Them All Out, investigative reporter and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer reveals that on November 18, 2009, Sen. Feinstein and her husband invested $1 million into Amyris Biotechnologies, a “green” company focused on plant-based renewable fuels and chemicals. The Feinsteins’ million-dollar investment was their only stock transaction for the entire year.

Feinstein, however, had good reason to feel that all her investment eggs were secure in the biotech basket, because just weeks after her seven-figure investment in Amyris, the company scored a $24 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to build a pilot plant where altered yeast would turn sugar into hydrocarbons.

The company went public the following year with an IPO that raked in $85 million. Currently, it’s unclear exactly how much money Senator Feinstein and her husband made off their investment, “but it’s safe to assume that they did well,” concludes Schweizer. (more…)