Scary but not Surprising

43% of Democrats believe that the President should have the right to ignore court rulings if they are standing in the way of actions he feels are important for the country.  Only 35% of Dems disagree, the remainder being undecided.

This from a  Rasumssen poll of likely voters, which also shows that 81% of Republicans disagree with the President having the power to ignore the courts.

Today’s Democratic Party is an enemy of American self-government, and it appears that a lot of the party’s supporters want to it be this way.

See also my related posts:

The Democratic Party and the drive for unlimited government power

When law yields to absolute power

A Foreign Policy Conducted so Stupidly that it Burns

Cross-posted from zenpundit.com

Karl Marx once said history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. The United States, on the other hand, has in a short quarter-century moved from parody to farce:

 

SNL Desert Storm Press Conf (3 34) from Wendy Hall on Vimeo.

Only the outcomes are likely to be tragic.

Barring a Bugs Bunny-level reverse-psychology Information Operation in progress, we have a highly centralized White House whose micromanagement of military campaigns by amateur staffers includes briefing the enemy:

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Good Business

Knaus Berry Farm

I visited this place with a friend over the weekend. They sell baked goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, preserves and milk shakes. The parking lot was jammed and we had to wait in line to buy cinnamon buns. We also bought tomatoes, strawberries and some other vegetables.

It is a simple business, selling simple products. It is located in a semi-rural agricultural area that is probably a bit out of the way for most customers. The prices are not cheap and they take cash only. They are closed on Sundays. Yet on Saturdays there is always a wait to buy sticky buns, and they seem to sell plenty of fruit, vegetables and milk shakes.

What distinguishes this place is the quality of its products. The buns are excellent. The strawberries we bought were perfectly ripe and sweet, and the grape tomatoes were the best I’ve had in as long as I can remember; I ate them like candy.

I have no idea about their bottom line, but they have been in business for a long time so I guess they do OK. It seems from this example that the only thing you need to do to prosper in business is offer first-rate products. But, of course, that is also one of the hardest things.

We may need to go back there and do more research.

What Chicagoboyz Readers are Reading (January 2015)

Below is a list of the books, ebooks, music and videos ordered in January 2015 by Chicago Boyz readers via Amazon links on this blog. (A cumulative list of Chicago Boyz readers’ Amazon book purchases is here.)

Your book and non-book Amazon purchases help to support this blog via the Amazon Associates affiliate program. Chicago Boyz earns a percentage on all of your Amazon purchases as long as you enter the Amazon site via the Amazon links on this blog (including the Amazon banner in the blog header, the link above the Amazon banner and any Amazon links on this blog for products other than the ones you are buying).

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The Liquidation of Markets

Every weekend I read Barry Ritholtz’s recommended reading and there are a lot of gems in there. Recently he posted this Credit Suisse graphic about markets at the turn of the 20th Century by market share and compared it with 2014 on the topic of global equity investing.

US_stocks

In his article he mentioned the fallacy one might fall into as a UK equity investor in 1899… why bother investing in the USA when the UK market is so much larger? And then this line of thought ends up missing the huge growth in US market share over the next century.

However, the real issue here isn’t the relative change in market share by the different countries; it is the fact that almost all of these markets were entirely extinguished at one time or another by political, economic or military events that wiped out the investors.

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