Joe is not a plumber, and he made up his story

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters in the United States in 2007 was $47,350.

Biden says:

“You notice John [McCain] continues to cling to the notion of this guy Joe the plumber,” Biden said on NBC’s Today show. “I don't have any Joe the plumbers in my neighborhood that make $250,000 a year that are worried.”

“The Joe the plumbers in my neighborhood, the Joe the cops in my neighborhood, the Joe the grocery store owners in my neighborhood — they make, like 98 percent of the small businesses, less than $250,000 a year,” said the Democratic VP nominee. “And they’re going to do very well under us, and they’re going to be in real tough shape under John McCain.”

Biden is smart, because it turns out Joe is NOT, in fact, a plumber.

It also turns out Joe is one of those 75% of Americans that doesn't make more than 95% of Americans but thinks that one day he will. Some call it optimism, but mathematicians call it delusional.

COURIC: Well, he supposedly will raise taxes only on people who make over $250,000 a year. Would you be in that category?
WURZELBACHER: Not right now at presently, but, you know, question, so he's going to do that now for people who make $250,000 a year. When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much, you know?

According to divorce records, Joe made about $40,000 a year as of 2006.

Oh, and it turns out Joe doesn't really worry too much about taxes, becase Joe doesn't pay his taxes. A true liberatarian hero.

Update:
This Joe the Plumber story is just falling all to pieces for McCain. It turns out Joe The Not-Really A Plumber is the possible grandson of Charles Keating, and actually lived on (no joke) Keating Drive, in Mesa, Arizona.

Should taxpayers help Joe buy a plumbing business that someone else owns?

Let's see, Joseph wants to buy a business that makes in profits $250,000 - $280,000 a year. So, the cost of purchasing must be, let me do that math:

Annual return on investment would have to be in the 5 to 15% range, let's say 10%. So, Joe can afford to shell out:
$2,500,000 - 2,800,000 dollars
He's a effing millionaire.

And he's concerned about paying 3% additional tax on the amount of profit he'll make over $250,000, anywhere between $0 and, OH MY GOD, $900!!!

UPDATE:
He is not a millionaire, but a bit confused about the difference between income and expense, or a deceptive liar:

He acknowledged that he wants to buy a plumbing company for $250,000 to $280,000. That wouldn't be how much profit he would make from the firm.

He would make much less, he said.

Yeah, like only $30,000 !!!

AHHHGGG!! Thanks McCain for bringing up this total diversion. I guess we can count on that from you.

Bernstein: Again With the Trickle Down!?!

Over at Huffington Post:

If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what came to mind this AM when I read that John McCain's plan to address the ailing economy includes a big cut in the capital gains tax rate, from 15% to 7.5% for the next two years.

How wrongheaded is this? Let me count the ways.

First, the McCain folks may have missed this, but asset values have been falling, big time. Remember, John?... That whole financial mess that folks have been talking about? When capital assets, like stocks or bonds, lose value, that's a capital loss, and it's already deductible from your taxes.

Further on:

If you want to provide income and job opportunities to people who are hurting, your best bet is to do so directly, through tax cuts targeted at them, and through infrastructure investment designed to create new, quality jobs. That's what Obama aims for in his recently announced package.

Finally, and this is important, does anyone really believe that this allegedly temporary cut will really sunset in two years? Like Dr. Phil says, "this ain't my first rodeo!" That's the tripwire in the Bush cuts. They end in 2011, but anyone who wants to let them do so is accused of supporting the "largest tax increase in history."

And finally

So we are yet again left with John McCain getting it wrong on economic policy. There is absolutely a need to help struggling families right now, but if this is the best he can come up with, we'd all be much better off if he put the hammer back in the tool shed and left the policy construction to others.

read the entire article

The Last of the Couric Interviews

I love Katie Couric's response to the claim it was Gotchya Journalism!

I Know How to Win Wars

Please help me out. When Grampy McNuggets keeps saying "I know how to win wars", what the @#$!&@ is he talking about? Have I missed a war? Was he involved in the planning of Desert Storm and we just didn't know?

Republican Rage: McCain = Paul von Hindenburg

From CNN:

...
One member of the Palin audience in Jacksonville, Florida, Tuesday shouted out "treason." And at another rally in the state Monday, Palin's mention of the Obama-Ayers tie caused one member to yell out: "kill him" -- though it was unclear if it was targeted at Obama or Ayers.

At several recent rallies, Palin has stirred up crowds by mentioning the "liberal media." Routinely, there are boos at every mention of The New York Times and the "mainstream media," both of which are staples of Palin's stump speech.

Some audience members are openly hostile to members of the traveling press covering Palin; one crowd member hurled a racial epithet at an African-American member of the press in Clearwater, Florida, on Monday.

And at a McCain rally in New Mexico on Monday, one supporter yelled out "terrorist" when McCain asked, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain didn't respond.

So far, neither Palin nor McCain have explicitly called on their supporters to tamper down the attacks.


...

Also, the McCains said months ago they didn't wanted their son Jimmy -- a Marine serving in Iraq -- dragged into the campaign.

But on Thursday, Cindy McCain brought up her son.

She criticized the Illinois senator for voting against a bill to fund troops in Iraq, a regular line of attack from her husband's campaign.

"The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body, let me tell you," she told a Pennsylvania crowd before introducing her husband and his No. 2.


The vote Cindy McCain is referencing came in May 2007, when Obama was one of 14 senators who voted against a war-spending plan that would have provided emergency funds for American troops overseas.

A CNN fact check deemed the charge that Obama voted against troop funding "misleading."

Update:

McCain Faces Backlash Over Rabid Crowds frighteningly demonstrates that McCain is unable to contain the crowds that Palin has unleashed. Let me be the first to compare Palin to Hitler in 1932. McCain = Paul von Hindenburg.

Update 2:
I'm not the only one who sees this:

Is John McCain our Paul von Hindenburg?

McCain is a weak figure, the Hindenberg to Palin's Hitler.

Update 3:
WSJ comment:

People are conflicted about what they want. They want activist liberal government but they also want muscular American foreign policy and a dynamic capitalist system. So, logically, the only way to go forward is National Socialism.

Vote McCain/Palin, our version of Hindenburg/Hitler ticket, an aging war hero and a revolutionary who “speaks” to women and the great middle….

You know the next step of the pirouette… the war hero dies and there is a new terror attack resulting in a new Enabling Act….

Some things never change.

Comment by Only way to go forward now! - September 12, 2008 at 1:07 pm

This YouTube video has been out since Palin was announced as McCain's running mate, but it kind of fits in here:

McCain Hates Science Education And Is an Idiot: OVERHEAD PROJECTOR? NOT!

Based on what McCain said in last night's debate, he thinks this is an OVERHEAD PROJECTOR (like the kind your teacher had in your classroom):


Planetarium Projector



What an asshole.

UPDATE:
Adler Responds

From my former boss there from 15 years ago:

Adler president to McCain: Sky machine not an overhead projector

October 8, 2008

BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff reporter/aherrmann@suntimes.com
The president of the Adler Planetarium lifted a black cloth off a familiar schoolroom device Wednesday and declared, "That’s an overhead projector.’’

Behind Paul H. Knappenberger Jr. was an automobile-sized machine. That, he said, is a "planetarium projection system.’’

The overhead, "you can probably get for $10 or so on eBay,’’ said Knappenberger.

But to replace the Adler’s sky machine, which creates stars on a domed ceiling, would cost $3 million to $5 million.

Knappenberger felt obligated to distinguish the two after Sen. John McCain, during Tuesday night’s presidential candidate debate, criticized Obama for trying to win federal support for a new star device, calling it a "$3 million overhead projector" and dismissing it as a "pork barrel earmark.’’

Knappenberger said the mention put the Adler "in front of the American public as having been frivolous or foolish in asking for $3 million for an overhead projector.’’

"I just wanted to clarify that is not the case," he said.

Obama’s efforts to secure the $3 million have been unsuccessful. But Knappenberger said the Adler would try again.

The current star system — a Mark VI Zeiss Projector — was installed in 1967. The manufacturer no longer makes replacement parts, and the inside is disintegrating, so errant, escaping light projects onto the dome.

"New stars are appearing in our sky almost daily, [and] not where they belong,’’ said Knappenberger.

Some 80,000 school children, mostly from the Chicago area but also from all 50 states, visited the Adler in 2007, officials said.

"The national surveys have shown that U.S. students are falling further behind each year in math and science compared to other countries around the world,’’ said Knappenberger. "It’s not comforting to hear somebody who’s running for the presidency not support efforts to improve math and science."

McCain supporters charge that the planetarium earmark was a way for Obama to reward ComEd executive Frank Clark, who serves as the Adler board chairman and is also a major fund-raiser for Obama.

Knappenberger said the planetarium started asking local congressmen for federal help in 2005, before Obama declared his candidacy for president.

UPDATE 2:
And from the Wall Street Journal:

Paul Knappenberger was watching the presidential debate Tuesday night when the planetarium he runs was suddenly turned into a political football. “My phone started ringing,” he says. “My computer went berserk.”




Paul Knappenberger with an ordinary projector and a star projector at Chicago’s

Alder Planetarium. (WSJ Photo/Joe Barrett)

The transformation of the Adler Planetarium, a 78-year-old cultural landmark on the shore of Lake Michigan, occurred when GOP presidential hopeful John McCain was making a dig at Democratic rival Barack Obama’s spending habits. “While we were working to eliminate pork-barrel earmark projects, he voted for nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel earmarks, including $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill.,” the Arizona senator said. “My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

Wednesday morning, Knappenberger called a news conference under the domed roof of the facility’s Sky Theater to argue that that kind of money is indeed worth spending. The planetarium has offered millions of students a chance to see something they normally can’t in Chicago—a dark, night sky—“an inspiring opportunity to get students interested in science, interested in math, he said.

He said McCain’s comment “doesn’t sit well” with someone who has dedicated his career to that pursuit.

He also pulled out an old overhead projector—the kind found in classrooms—to clarify the difference between it and the Mark VI Zeiss Projector that has been recreating a view of the stars and planets since it was installed in 1967. It is only the second projector for the planetarium, which was the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere when it was founded in 1930.

Today, the instrument—which consists of two large blue balls that shine pinpoints of light on the ceiling–is in dire need of replacement. Parts are wearing out and replacements are no longer available. “New stars are appearing almost daily,” he joked.

Knappenberger said the cost of replacing the projector will run between $3 million and $5 million as part of a $10 million project to renovate the entire theater. Last year, the planetarium requested help from Illinois Sens. Obama and Dick Durbin and the area’s six congressman, all of whom backed the federal earmark request. At some point in the budget process, though, the funding was turned down.

The planetarium has received pledges of between $3 million and $4 million from private sources and will try again for federal help—as well as state and city funding—during the next budget cycle, Knappenberger said.

McCain pounced on the projector project again Wednesday, telling an audience in Bethlehem, Pa. that he had mentioned the projector at the debate and added: “Coincidentally, the chairman of that planetarium pledged to raise more than $200,000 for Sen. Obama’s campaign. We don’t know if they ever discussed the money for the planetarium, and no one has asked Sen. Obama. But even the appearance of this kind of insider-dealing disgusts Americans. I’m going to put a stop to that, my friends, if I’m president.”

Update 3:

University of Chicago Professor says:

The way Sen. McCain has phrased it suggests that Sen. Obama approved spending $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment (overhead projector).
...
I find it appalling that Sen. McCain would call a science education tool for public (largely children) for a historic planetarium with millions of visitors a year a wasteful earmark. The planetarium's focus, as stated on their website (http://adlerplanetarium.org) is "on inspiring young people, particularly women and minorities, to pursue careers in science." Is an investment in such public facility at the time when US competitiveness in math and sciences is a constant source of alarm a waste?

McCain's Health Care Plan

Good column by Paul Krugman on McCain's Health Care Plan.


Basically, McCain wants to remove the tax benefit companies get for providing health insurance to their employees, and instead have people buy it for themselves with a tax credit. On the surface this sounds enticing and modern because it removes the need to stay at a company just because of health insurance benefits, which is indeed a problem facing employees in today's loyalty-free workplace.

The removal of the tax incentive for employers will surely result in employers dropping health insurance coverage as a benefit for their employees. I remember being puzzled in college as to why employers are so depended on for health coverage. Well, I was in college during the great DOWNSIZING of corporations, so you can see why it seemed so illogical for both employees and employers...employers were the last persons you wanted to be reliant on, and what's in it for the employer? Well, once upon a time, employers strove to attract employees, who were seen as a LONG TERM INVESTMENT, and offering health insurance was a sweet benefit. But at some point it became the norm, and thereafter, the culture changed so employees became disposable and interchangeable.

(By the way, universal health coverage takes care of this problem)

But the major flaw, if not deception, in McCain's "let the free market work" plan is that insurance is not, as economists would call it, a normal good. Insurance is peculiar in that the more folks that are in a SINGLE PLAN, the more risk is diversified, and the more affordable it is overall. This, by the way, is why UNIVERSAL COVERAGE makes so much sense, because you are broadening the pool way larger than any private insurer could...to include the entire COUNTRY.

This is also why small companies cannot afford group health insurance, compared to large corporations. Large corporations have lots of employees in their plan, so it is less riskier for insurance companies...the risk is diversified.

If small businesses are paying through the roof for group health insurance, what do you think will happen when the plans are now made up of INDIVIDUALS?

So, what will happen in McCain's plan is that private insurance companies will offer really inexpensive plans to those who are young, male and healthy. And VERY EXPENSIVE plans (or more likely, plans that disguise the fact that they don't cover much at all) for everyone else.

Keating 5 and the S&L Debacle

Aware of the Internet and its Traditions

Flashbacks...
Americans passed on acknowledged technophile Gore at the threshold of the Internet's boom.

McCain does not use a computer.

Democrat Who Will Fare Best Against McCain

One of my points below about electibility in my previous post is now obsolete. The Republicans pretty much as locked into McCain, so now questions of electibility are not as problematic; its no longer shooting a missile with a missile.

I still think that of all the years to be worrying about electibility in the general election, this is not the year. Folks, we are dealing not only with the vestige of one of the most unpopular and unsuccessful administrations here, but also the fatigue of 8 years with said administration. And then, there's the economy! If this isn't a perfect storm for a Democratic victory, I don't know what is.

With that caveat, I think a case can be made that Hillary would fare better versus McCain than Obama. My reasoning is based on the fact that year after year, McCain has one because of a single trump card, his military service. That's how he won his first election, and it has been easy sailing for him ever since. His famous quote in response to a challenge in his first debate was essentially, to paraphrase, "where were YOU while I was out fighting for our country?". The past 30+ years of strides in gender equality not-withstanding, the visceral reaction for non-Democrats is going to be kinder to a woman than a man, where neither has a record of military service. There might be an additional onus on Obama because so many African-Americans are in the military (not sure how that might figure into the calculus of public perception).

Plus, Hillary has a similarly pseudo moral smirky line with equal weight as McCain's. She was giving birth and raising a child.

There is another more subtle and abstract reason I think Hillary will fare better versus McCain. It follows from the fact that, however likeable McCain may seem to be, it is not because of his suaveness. He is not charming. In fact, he is a bit awkward, and carelessly speaks and then apologizes, and considers such gruffness a token of sincerity (or "straight talk"). When put next together someone who is almost the complete opposite, that is, charming and suave, as I consider Obama to be, it is going to likely highlight McCain's likeability. Maybe not, but I think there is considerable chance that McCain will be able to take advantage of this sharp contrast in demeanor.

Hillary, on the other hand, has the same awkward graces has McCain, but not on such a clumsy level. Next to Hillary, McCain just looks dumb. Next to Obama, McCain looks "authentic".