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Amy Peikoff Talks with Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer

Sep 1, 2011 | Politics

From Don't Let It Go:
I am pleased to share, as a podcast, my interview with Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of many books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). We have been reading Mr. Spencer’s Qur’an Commentary as a supplement to our reading of the Koran for our Koran Reading Group. Mr. Spencer answers a range of questions in the interview, from general observations about the poetic nature of the Koran, to discussion and interpretation of specific passages of it–including those that call for the use of violence against non-Muslims and require women to produce four witnesses in order to prove that they were raped. You can listen to and download the interview here: Robert Spencer Interview

Warren Buffet Hypocrite

Aug 30, 2011 | Politics

Writes Richard M. Salsman on Warren Buffett and Other Anti-Rich Capitalists:
Omaha-based billionaire investor Warren Buffet announced this week that he’d invest $5 billion in newly-issued preferred stock of troubled Bank of America (yielding 6%), not unlike the $10 billion he invested in the preferred shares of a shaky Goldman Sachs (yielding 10%) back in 2008. Neither bank would exist today absent the billions-of-dollars in bailouts they got from Washington (taxpayers) or the billions in cheap loans they got from the Federal Reserve. Buffet simultaneously complains that he and other rich Americans are materially under-taxed. But if he had any real integrity on such matters, if Buffet were to practice what he preaches, he’d send his $15 billion to the U.S. Treasury, via PayPal, here.  Yet he refuses to do so. Why?
Read the rest in Warren Buffett and Other Anti-Rich Capitalists. 

Amy Peikoff Q & A On Privacy and Social Media

Aug 30, 2011 | Politics

Professor Amy Peikoff did a short Q & A on privacy and social media for the Summer 2011 issue of Chapman Magazine. You can find it here, just click on the issue with “A Roaring 20″ on the cover, and use the online reader to flip to page 10.Also don't forget to check out her 2 hour special podcast, where topics include: Hurricane Irene, including our government’s reaction to it and global warming hype about it; David Letterman’s reaction to the jihadist threat; Steve Jobs’s retirement, Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics; Federal Raid on Gibson Guitars; Bloomberg’s decision to have no clergy present at 9/11 commemoration.If you were unable to attend live and would like to hear this week’s webcast/podcast, click here for hour one, and click here for hour two, or you can access the files via iTunes

“Baseline” Gimmick: “Cut” is in Reality a Lower Increase in Spending

Aug 2, 2011 | Politics

Richard Salsman crunches the numbers at Forbes on the attempt to "cut" the size of the public debt:
[...] Even the most “radical” GOP plan, to “cut” $9 trillion, would boost federal outlays by 30% in the coming decade versus outlays in the past decade, while the most modest GOP plan, to cut a mere $2 trillion, would boost outlays by 55%. Yet Democrats lambaste GOP plans as “Draconian,” prone to trigger a “depression.”By “baseline” federal spending over the coming decade, the CBO means the sum that’ll be spent even with no changes in current fiscal policy, whether in tax rates or spending schemes. As mentioned, the CBO says $45.8 trillion in outlays over the coming decade are effectively on “auto-pilot,” so any proposed “cut” is relative only to this huge number. As mentioned, Washington spent $28.3 trillion over the past decade, so embedded “baseline” spending of $45.8 trillion in the coming decade already entails an astounding increase of 62%. In the coming decade neither U.S. population nor real economic output would rise nearly so much.[...] Why are today’s politicians, journalists and economists so complicit in deliberately misleading the public about the current and future state of U.S. finances? Why do they speak of “cuts” in future federal spending when the CBO routinely projects increases in the range of +30% to +65%? Check those numbers again, dear citizen: they’re positive, not negative. “Baseline budgeting,” which blithely presumes a perpetually-growing government, was first enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1974, in order to side-step White House efforts to “impound” (limit) federal spending; but that doesn’t condone the gimmick – or justify lying to the public. When people hear that Washington will “cut” spending by $2 trillion over the coming decade, they think that’s a lot of money and that outlays might be $2 trillion lower a decade hence – not higher by 50% or more. Even Boehner’s budget plan, like many others, backloads the “cuts” into later years; he’d “cut” outlays by only $23 billion in 2012, equivalent to less than three days of total federal spending at the current spending rate.  [Richard Salsman, Forbes,  Washington’s Budget “Cuts” Would Boost Spending 50%]

Democrat Casino Mogul Steve Wynn on Obama’s “Weird” Job Destroying Philosophy

Jul 21, 2011 | Philosophy, Politics

From Wynn Resorts' CEO Discusses Q2 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha:
Well, here's our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas. I know that I could do 10,000 more myself and according to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Convention Bureau, if we hired 10,000 employees, it would create another 20,000 additional jobs for a grand total of 30,000.

I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I'm afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what's going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating.

And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems -- that keeps using that word redistribution.

Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America. You bet. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, "Oh God, don't be attacking Obama."

Well, this is Obama's deal, and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest or holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government, and there's no need to soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans.

And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.

State of the Culture: Amy Peikoff Interview with ARI’s Yaron Brook

Jul 19, 2011 | Philosophy, Politics

Dr. Yaron Brook, along with business hero John Allison and philosopher Leonard Peikoff, are the leading voices today in promoting Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism: which advocates reason, individual rights and the virtue of selfishness (i.e., the pursuit of one's long-term happiness). Listen to this full-hour Interview with Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and the state of the Culture at Don’t Let It Go…Unheard #22.





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