Hundreds of fans bound for Durban for the Germany-Spain World Cup semi final missed the game because their flights were unable to land, after air traffic authorities closed the city’s airport because of congestion on the runway caused by private aircraft. …Wire services reported that among the VIPs heading for the semi-final by jet were Spain’s King Juan Carlos, South African President Jacob Zuma, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and socialite Paris Hilton. The BA pilot, who held his plane for around 45 minutes above Durban in the vain hope of getting a landing slot, told passengers he had no choice but to take the plane to Johannesburg because the plane’s fuel was starting to run low. He announced that the problem was caused by the airport allowing too many private jets to land at Durban, leaving the runways clogged up and unable to accept scheduled flights. Confusion was heightened at OR Tambo airport by the lack of any senior officials to explain the problem. One junior official said she believed around 15 scheduled flights, mostly from Johannesburg, were unable to land in Durban.
Archive for July 8th, 2010
Big Carbon Footprints for the Elite, Missed Soccer Matches for the Peasants
Posted in Climate change, Elitism, Environmentalism, Global warming, Hypocrisy, Soccer, tagged Climate change, Elitism, Environmentalists, Global warming, Hypocrisy, Soccer on July 8, 2010| 12 Comments »
Sexual and Racial Quotas and the Dodd-Frank Bailout Bill
Posted in Bailout, Financial Crisis, Regulation, tagged Bailouts, Discrimination, Financial Crisis, Regulation on July 8, 2010| 4 Comments »
In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America’s financial industry. In addition to this bill’s well-publicized plans to establish over a dozen new financial regulatory offices, Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion. This has had no coverage by the news media and has large implications. The Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks, the Board of Governors of the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…all would get their own Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. Each office would have its own director and staff to develop policies promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of not just the agency’s workforce, but also the workforces of its contractors and sub-contractors. …the bill specifies that the “fair” employment test shall apply to “financial institutions, investment banking firms, mortgage banking firms, asset management firms, brokers, dealers, financial services entities, underwriters, accountants, investment consultants and providers of legal services.” That last would appear to rope in law firms working for financial entities. Contracts are defined expansively as “all contracts for business and activities of an agency, at all levels, including contracts for the issuance or guarantee of any debt, equity, or security, the sale of assets, the management of the assets of the agency, the making of equity investments by the agency, and the implementation by the agency of programs to address economic recovery.” This latest attempt by Congress to dictate what “fair” employment means is likely to encourage administrators and managers, in government and in the private sector, to hire women and minorities for the sake of appearances, even if some new hires are less qualified than other applicants. The result is likely to be redundant hiring and a wasteful expansion of payroll overhead.
Bashing Bush-Obama Statism on CNBC
Posted in Big Government, Capital Gains Tax, Corporate tax, Economics, Government Spending, Keynes, News Appearance, Politics, Statism, tagged Keynesian Economics, News Appearance, Statism, Tax Increases, Unemployment on July 8, 2010| 10 Comments »
In a debate with one of the hopeless ideologues from the Center for American Progress, I criticize the corrupt deals between big government and big business, I warn about the big tax increases scheduled to take effect next year, I explain that Republicans did Obama a favor by blocking a bill to subsidize unemployment, and I laugh at the notion that government spending stimulates an economy.