Day: December 4, 2013

POLITICAL: FTC protecting us from piano teachers?

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303562904579224251626379422?mod=Opinion_newsreel_2

POTOMAC WATCH
Strassel: Piano Sonata in FTC Minor
Music teachers, beware. The feds are onto you. Better not try to raise the price of your lessons.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Nov. 28, 2013 4:51 p.m. ET

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While this abuse of power has received no national attention, it has riled the music community. Brian Majeski, the editor of the journal Music Trades, lambasted the FTC in a December editorial, noting that “a consumer watchdog that sees piano teachers as a threat either has too much time on its hands, or badly misplaced priorities.”

That might be too kind. Whether it is the IRS targeting conservatives, the Justice Department hounding Gibson Guitar, or the EPA conducting an armed raid on an Alaskan mine—this administration has a tendency toward abuse of power. That’s how antitrust laws created to tackle megamonopolies end up being used to hound and hammer a nonprofit devoted to piano teachers.

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Anyone still think that this isn’t Gooferment?

Argh!

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RANT: Corruption in the numbers?

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/11/27/did-the-bls-give-obama-a-major-election-2012-gift/

Peter Ferrara, Contributor
OP/ED | 11/27/2013 @ 8:00AM
Did The BLS Give Obama A Major Election 2012 Gift?

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Just before the election. How convenient.

That was totally unbelievable at the time, and I and others said so then.

In my Forbes column the very next week, “President Obama’s Unemployment Still Stuck at 14.7%,” I noted how inconsistent the supposed unemployment drop was with other contemporaneous economic data.

The sharp unemployment drop supposedly resulted from a total of 114,000 new jobs created in September, 2012, according to the Establishment Survey of business payrolls of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the Obama Administration had been emphasizing throughout its first term.

But economist John Lott noted at Foxnews.com that the working age population had grown by 206,000 in September, 2012. With normal labor force participation during a recovery from a steep recession, that would have required 138,000 new jobs that month, just to keep pace with population growth, let alone to reduce the unemployment rate.

Moreover, the BLS also reported for September, 2012 that the number of full-time jobs declined by 216,000 in that month.

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Nothing like “cooking the books”!

A CEO or CFO would be in prison.

A politician gets reelected.

And, no one inquires.

Argh!

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Where are the yellow dog journalists?

OH, yeah, it’s “their candidate” doing it.

Argh!

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