Apparently, grocery shoppers may actually see some prices going down. Wow, that would be a change.

Jeff Dolan’s tomatoes in San Joaquin Valley are ripening and ready to pick this week. But that puts him in a pickle.

In California, harvest time is arriving just as tomato growers in other parts of the U.S. are reeling from a sudden supply glut that is pushing the price for fresh tomatoes sharply lower. Florida farmers who fetched more than $30 a few months ago for a 25-pound box of round, fresh field-grown tomatoes, also known as slicer tomatoes, are now getting $5 or less.

The abundant crop is rooted in last winter’s cold weather in Florida, which delayed the development of tomato plants. The overdue harvest hit the market in May just as DiMare Co., where Mr. Dolan oversees California field operations, was picking tomatoes near Palm Springs

Well, you win some and you lose some. The farmers had a bad growing season, and now all the tomatoes have come on the market at once. That’s how business goes. Well, unless the government steps in.

The U.S. Agriculture Department estimates that wholesale tomato prices fell to 25 cents a pound in June, down 78% since March. The current price is “the lowest number that I can remember seeing,” says Gary Lucier, an agricultural economist and tomato expert at the USDA.

Worried about the impact of the plunge on farmers, the USDA is buying $6 million of tomatoes and distributing them to food banks. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the purchase is designed to give Florida farmers “some relief.”

Would someone tell Tom Vilsack that consumers need some relief after the Fed has inflated prices sky high over the past decade. Here we go with the market prices reflecting what is really going on, and what does the government do? It steps in and starts handing out cash. Instead of letting consumer demand rise with the lower prices, the government steps in as a huge consumer and drives the prices up. While I’m sure it buys them big agriculture’s vote  and donations, it does not help “The People”.

January’s freeze in Florida destroyed about two-thirds of the tomato crop in one major growing region, according to the USDA, citing industry estimates. As supplies withered, prices spiked, and some of the increase was passed on to consumers. In the first quarter, U.S. average retail tomato prices rose 24% to $2 a pound.

via the WSJ Tomatoes Go From Shortage to Glut – WSJ.com.

So where was the government when the prices spiked? Did they step in to help the consumer? Of course not, nor should they have. This idea that farmers need “relief” is silly economics. If the price of tomatoes drop, more tomatoes will be bought. Yes, farmers will make less per tomato, but they can make up the difference with volume. It’s no different than the local store running a sale on some product that has been sitting on their shelves. The local store realizes that the price is too high, and at the current price the demand isn’t there. So, what do they do? They run a sale. While they don’t make the same amount per item, they make it up on volume and getting the products off the shelf where they are making no money.

The farmers know this is coming, and they should plan for it. And I don’t mean by lobbying local politicians for “relief”. No on gives relief to the local Kmart when they stock too much of an item nobody seems to want. Farmers can run sales as well. They will survive. Some may go out of business, just like every other industry. Then guess what happens? There is less tomatoes produced next time and prices go up. Then when the price go up, farmers will be incentivized to move back into growing more tomatoes.  The free market works, and it doesn’t require the government plundering everyone every time some crop doesn’t come in the way farmers would like at the price they’d like.

Switzerland has been the home of off shore banking for a very long time. People who want to keep their money off shore, are doing it to protect their money from the modern day mafia, the US gov’t. Well, not for long. The Obama administration has vowed to go after those who believe their money is theirs, whether it is at home or over seas.

The Swiss were not giving in until just yesterday when their parliament approved a treaty with the US that would hand over files on their clients.

ZURICH—The Swiss Parliament Tuesday approved a treaty with the U.S. that will hand thousands of files on suspected tax cheats to U.S. authorities.

A majority of 81 to 61 lawmakers in Switzerland’s lower house have voted in favor of the government-backed deal. Fifty-three lawmakers abstained on the issue that has been portrayed as a nail in the coffin for Swiss banking secrecy.

Tuesday’s vote passed after the powerful Swiss People’s Party dropped its opposition. A first attempt last week to have parliament approve the treaty was blocked when the nationalist party and the left-wing Social Democrats voted “no.”

Technical details remain to be ironed out and the proposal may still be put to the Swiss public in a referendum before it finally becomes law.

Subjecting the bill to a referendum would likely mean that Switzerland would fail to meet the August deadline set in the pact with the U.S. because of the months it takes to hold a signature drive to launch a referendum in Switzerland.

The August 2009 settlement reached between Swiss and U.S. officials aims to resolve a conflict between Switzerland and the U.S. over data on wealthy Americans suspected of using hidden offshore accounts at UBS to avoid paying taxes.

OK, now two things are going on here. Number one is that the American government is so tyrannical that they will go after your money anywhere on the face of the earth. There is no such thing as personal property. There is no such thing as doing what is best for your money. They will chase you down literally to the edge of the earth. If that isn’t tyranny, I don’t know what is.

Second, the Swiss Parliament is completely screwing their people. If they turn over the files of wealthy Americans, what reason do wealthy Americans have in the future to put their savings into Swiss banks. They don’t. What will happen is savings will dry up in Switzerland. This means less capital for Swiss lending.

When savings are built up in banks, banks, in order to make profits, lend out that money. They lend it out to businesses, who then will look to grow the economy. In this short sighted attempt to appease the US regime, the Swiss will be giving up those savings, and they will be giving up the economic growth that that savings would have stimulated. In short, they are screwing their citizens, because the US regime wants to screw it’s citizens.

In a free market, when people do not want a product, businesses have to adapt their products to deliver something that is wanted. If they do not, they will go out of business. This is a good thing, because it keeps what is produced aligned with what is demanded. For example, when automobiles came out, eventually no one wanted horse carriages anymore. Companies that didn’t adapt went out of business. You wouldn’t keep producing horse carriages when no one had horses and were driving around in cars.

Well, in modern day America this isn’t how it works. In the modern day United States of America, you just lobby the government to force citizens at gun point to pay for your product even when they don’t want it and you don’t even provide it.  Take for example the newspapers. Here is a business model that has been collapsing for years. The internet has changed the way people get their news. People can get articles from many different sources instead of just their local paper. This isn’t something that just started happening. The writing has been on the wall for a long time. So instead of adapting to deliver what people are demanding, what are the news papers doing?

The U.S. government has some creative ideas to “save journalism” or more aptly to save newspapers. Among their feel-good suggestions to help preserve the free press (paper) is to institute a 5 percent tax on all consumer electronics.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has submitted a multi-faceted proposal to President Obama and Congress. The FTC insists the proposal is “solely for the purposes of discussion”, though it expects aspects of it could work their way in to legislation.

The most controversial part of the proposal is to tax all digital electronics, including, but not limited to — iPads, iPods, iPhones, laptops, desktop PCs, Macs, netbooks, Zunes, Sansas, Creative MP3 players, digital cameras, video cameras, Android smart phones, Nintendo DS's, PSP Go's, Xbox 360s, Wiis, and the PS3.

The 5 percent federal tax, along with applicable state taxes, would bump total tax on these items to 10 percent or more in many states.

The proposal would suck in $25 per $500 spent on electronics goodness. The government would “redistribute” the $4B USD it hopes to haul in from the proposal to struggling print news businesses, who have seen their ad revenue drop 40 percent in the last decade as advertising has made the leap to the internet.

The full recommendation is available here [PDF]. Feel free to contact your Senators and Representatives and give them your thoughts.

Even if the government can’t find a way to enact a consumer electronics tax, state governments should help pick up the slack. Nationwide there's a wealth of measures looking to tax digital downloads such as iTunes tracks, video game downloads from Valve, and more. Critics say the laws will drive people to piracy, but advocates say they will allow the government to harvest much needed funds to pay for roads, schools, and police forces.

via DailyTech – FTC Discusses 5 Percent Federal Tax on Computers, Phones, and Consoles.

There you have it. Stick a gun to everyone’s head and  make them pay for newspapers, when they neither want nor get a damn newspaper. Instead of the person, who will have to pay this tax, being able to spend that money on something they want and that will generate new business, they are having it stolen from them to give to another business, which will not provide a product in return. Think about that.

Say you have $525 to spend. You decide you want to buy an iPad for $500. Under this tax, you’d have to pay $25 for newspapers. Do you get a newspaper. No you do not. The newspaper gets your money without providing a product. Does this stimulate business in any way? They are basically selling their products at inflated prices, but the difference between what their real customers pays and what the real price is is what the rest of society has to pay.  Nothing more is produced. There is no economic gain here. The consumer lost out on the enjoyment of whatever labor it took him to earn that $25, and the business is being reward for producing what people do not want.

Now if this consumer had the same $525 to spend as he pleases, he would buy his iPad for $500. Then he would have his $25 to encourage businesses to produce what he demands. He would actually get the enjoyment that he earned through his labor. That $25 may go to online media, which has adapted to the new business models. Who knows. When the money is spent, a product would actually be delivered and be produced. The economy would benefit. The consumer would get the benefit of his labor. The producer that was intelligent enough to produce something people want would be rewarded, and quality of life is improved. Price signals would do their job. The newspaper would then have to charge more money to stay in business. Consumers obviously wouldn’t want what they are producing, since they don’t want it at the current lower prices. The newspaper businesses would consolidate, change and adapt to survive. This is how the free market works, and the government should let it work. If we did this years ago, we’d all have horse carriages sitting in our driveways next to our automobiles.

Keep an eye on this. Because China, like the US, doesn’t have a free market when it comes to interest rates, there is a good chance they will pop their real estate bubble, and when they do, it’s going to set off round two of the global financial crisis. Of course, that will set off the Fed to print even more money, which will fuel inflation even more.

Should I go buy my wheel barrow now?

Asian stock markets traded mostly lower Tuesday, with markets in China and Hong Kong weighed by fears Beijing may introduce further tightening measures aimed at curbing the property sector.

via China Down on Tightening Fears – WSJ.com.

The U.S. government wants you to accept its new Benjamins: its new $100 notes. It hopes that counterfeiters are less pleased.

The Treasury Department unveiled what it calls “the next generation one hundred,” a redesigned $100 bank note to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The new $100 notes will be available on Feb.10, 2011.

By now, the government has become intimately familiar with the process of rolling out new money.

via U.S. Unveils New $100 Bill – WSJ.com.

We know they have become intimately familiar with the process of rolling out new money. We are reminded at the gas station and the grocery store almost daily.

It appears that many competitors what a piece of the tablet pie. As my fellow capitalists know, everyone will benefit from this competition with better and cheaper products. Too bad, the government has locked competition out of health care.

Just as Apple’s iPhone shook up a complacent cellphone industry, the company’s iPad is provoking PC makers — and non-PC makers — to fight back with new devices.

Google — a search and advertising company — is soon expected to begin selling its version of a slate computer, like Apple’s iPad, while Nokia — the world’s biggest cellphone maker — is planning to enter the digital book market through a slate-cum-e-reader as well.

Microsoft, the maker of computer software, is flirting with the idea of selling its own version of a slate, joining traditional computer companies like Hewlett-Packard that have already committed to such products.

In part, these companies are feeling the pressure to respond to the iPad, which went on sale April 3. But their decisions to develop the hybrid products also demonstrate their desire to expand their core businesses, and to experiment with varying kinds of business models and technologies.

For consumers, it could all be good, as more companies offer their version of the slate, a new breed of consumer electronics, in a design free-for-all. The products, which will generally cost less than $600, provide different, and in some cases unusual, features that reflect the companies’ visions of what matters most to people.

via After iPad, Rivals Offer Hybrid Variations – NYTimes.com.

Why should health care be any different?

After all the stimulus, bailing out Wall Street to save Main Street, devaluing the dollar with the printing press, and TARP, Robert Reich tells us we are looking at a horrible job market for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March. That sounds impressive until you look more closely. At least a third of them were temporary government hires to take the census—better than no job but hardly worth writing home about.

Reich doesn’t tell you that almost every month previously was basically all government jobs. What do those jobs produce? They produce absolutely nothing, which means all they are doing is consuming what would have otherwise went towards other economic activities that would have produced something, and when there is production, there are real jobs. Every dollar spent by the government is taken out of the real job creating private sector. Considering the current regime, it’s no wonder Reich is so bleak.

Since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs and failed to create another 2.7 million required by an ever-larger pool of potential workers. That leaves us more than 11 million jobs behind. (The number is worse if you include everyone working part-time who’d rather it be full-time, those working full-time at fewer hours, and people who are overqualified for the jobs they’re in.) This means even if we enjoy a vigorous recovery that produces, say, 300,000 net new jobs a month, we could be looking at five to eight years before catching up to where we were before the recession began.

Lovely. Add ObamaCare on top of that, and what will we be looking at? Maybe Reich’s five to eight years is taking into account how long it will take for companies to adapt to the new costs of doing business. Of course, that ignores the countless businesses that will never form and jobs never created because of the cost of ObamaCare. No worries though! They’ll have free health care!

Given how many Americans are unemployed or underemployed, it’s hard to see where we get sufficient demand to support a vigorous recovery. Outlays from the federal stimulus have already passed their peak (Did I miss the peak? Man I wanted to see the peak. I bet it was amazing considering how much it cost.) , and the Federal Reserve won’t keep interest rates near zero for very long (let’s hope not). Although consumers are beginning to come out of their holes, it will be many years before they can return to their pre-recession levels of spending. Most households rely on two wage earners, of whom at least one is now likely to be unemployed, underemployed or in danger of losing a job. And even households whose incomes have returned are likely to be residing in houses whose values haven’t—which means they can’t turn their homes into cash machines as they did before the recession.

This to me sounds like an admission that Keynesian economics and it’s economic manipulating tools have lost effect. In the past, they would create a false boom that would eventually bust. This is what happened in the DotCom bubble and then the housing bubble. While the Keynesians probably stood around in delight to the boom they manufactured, eventually they came crashing down on us in progressively worse busts. Now it seems the bust is so big, that their tools can’t create the false booms they once did. While I’m glad the tools aren’t working, because maybe we can get back to real growth, I’m sure they’ll keep trying and we’ll keep paying.

What’s likely to slow the jobs recovery most, however, is the indubitable reality that many of the jobs that have been lost will never return.

The Great Recession has accelerated a structural shift in the economy that had been slowly building for years. Companies have used the downturn to aggressively trim payrolls, making cuts they’ve been reluctant to make before. Outsourcing abroad has increased dramatically. Companies have discovered that new software and computer technologies have made many workers in Asia and Latin America almost as productive as Americans, and that the Internet allows far more work to be efficiently moved to another country without loss of control.

Companies have also cut costs by substituting more computerized equipment for labor. They’ve made greater use of numerically controlled machine tools, robotics and a wide range of office software.

Where have I heard this before? Maybe we should just throw all the technologies out. Then maybe we can pay some people to dig holes, while others are paid to fill them. It’s amazing that such a famous economist is so ignorant about technology. Technology doesn’t cost us jobs and drive business overseas. Technology increases productivity, which leads to more wealth and a better standard of living. We’ve had increasing technology throughout mankind, and it has always led to a higher standard of living. There are always going to be people harmed by the changes though, but then they will adjust, and their standard of living will be better as well. Just think of those poor horse carriage builders who were put out of work with the introduction of the automobile.

The problem with driving business overseas is a self inflicted wound. Our government continually piles burdens on business and citizens, which ultimately drives up the cost of each US based employee to the point where the foreign employee is much more competitive.

These cost-cutting moves have allowed many companies to show profits notwithstanding relatively poor sales. Alcoa, for example, had $1.5 billion in cash at the end of last year, double what it had on hand at the end of 2008. It managed this largely by cutting 28,000 jobs, 32% of its work force. But for workers, there’s no return. Those who have lost their jobs to foreign outsourcing or labor-replacing technologies are unlikely ever to get them back. And they have little hope of finding new jobs that pay as well. More than 40% of today’s unemployed have been without work for over six months, a higher proportion than at any time in 60 years.

And guess what, we are all better off for it. Would we be better off if Alcoa didn’t layoff employees, and 80,000 employees lost their jobs when the company went bust? As crappy as layoffs are, they are in the economic interests of the company and the society as a whole. They allow companies to stay in business, to keep the remaining workers employed, and to fight another day.

I guess to a statist like Reich companies should run themselves into the ground, so they can then stand around telling us how the free market has failed and the government needs to take over.

The only way many of today’s jobless are likely to retain their jobs or get new ones is by settling for much lower wages and benefits. The official unemployment numbers hide the extent to which American workers are already on this downward path. But if you look at income data you’ll see the drop.

Among those with jobs, more and more have accepted lower pay and benefits as a condition for keeping them. Or they have lost higher-paying jobs and are now in new ones that pay less. Or new hires are paid far lower wages than the old. (In January, Ford Motor Co. announced that it would add 1,200 jobs at its Chicago assembly plant but didn’t trumpet that the new workers will be paid half of what current workers were paid when they began.) Or they have become consultants or temporary workers whose pay is unsteady and benefits nonexistent.

Americans will once again be employed, but they will also be back on the downward escalator of declining pay they rode before the Great Recession.

Robert Reich: The Jobs Picture Still Looks Bleak – WSJ.com.

So Americans can look forward to declining pay with devalued dollars. Man, Reich is making me feel positive today. The reason you have declining pay in recessions is because the rise in pay during the previous boom wasn’t based on real productivity increases. It was based on false booms created by the Federal Reserve. People need to wake up and see the game that is played here. The government creates false booms and claims credit for it. It creates new government programs, because “In a wealthy nation, no one should go without ….”. Then when it all comes crashing down, government tells us the free market failed and we must implement  “insert deceiving name here”, because the “the government must save the free market from itself”

What Reich doesn’t tell you is Keynesian economics promotes declining wages in order to stimulate a recovery. It wants to devalue the currency, so that employees don’t realize they have taken a pay cut. While this might have worked in the past to trick workers, no one seems to be playing along anymore. Pay is still being devalued in real dollars, but companies are still cutting pay in nominal dollars.

With all this pessimism by Reich, can we at least get him to admit that the government can’t fix it, that is has made things worse, that the Fed needs to quit creating false booms, and finally that the government needs to stay the hell out of the economy? Ah, probably not.

Here’s a great fable from the Conservative Business Network.

My mother and father would hark back to the days when a loaf of bread was only 8 cents. “Mom”, I would say, “things just cost more.”

Could I have been more wrong?

Things don’t cost more, it is a hidden tax!

How Inflation is Created

Contrary to common thought, inflation is not the normal order of things. It will all become very clear when you read this short analogy.

There are 10 people in a community.

1. Abe makes tractors

2. Bill makes gas

3. Charlie builds houses

4. Darin is a developer

5. Edward makes tractor parts

6. Frank is a produce farmer

7. George raises cattle

8. Hank is a tractor mechanic

9. Ian owns and drives a delivery van

10. Jasper is a laborer

These hardworking folks soon learned a simple barter system would not work. When Charlie built a house for Hank, he wanted to be paid, but did not need tractor parts.

They needed something else of value to trade. Everyone knew this was a problem for them too. So they all got together and created an advanced barter system called money.They created the “DayCredit” or as it became known the DC.

A DayCredit was equal to exactly (1) 12 hour day of work. Since it takes Charlie 3600 hours to build a house, the house is worth 300 DC’s. That means Hank is going to have to labor as a mechanic for 300 days to pay for the house.

With DC currency, it does not matter for whom Hank works, as long as they pay him in equivalent DC currency. Charlie knows that the money he receives can be used to buy goods or services from anyone else in their group.

So far; so good.

One day, the Fedrev family moves into town. The whole town is excited and welcome the Fedrev’s with open arms. They explain to them how their barter system works and the Fedrevs agree to accept and use the DC currency.

Up until this point, everyone printed their own currency based on integrity and full guarantee of their 12 hr work day per DC.

Fedrev was a printer and supplied printing services. Then one day they offered to be the sole printer of the DC currency. A reasonable idea but unfortunately Fedrev was lazy and dishonest.

Fedrev wanted to have the nicest house in the community but did not have enough DCs to purchase the house from Charlie. So they very quietly printed a little extra money and gave it to themselves as a 10% interest bonus. They then used that money to buy the most expensive house Charlie could build.

Everyone knew there were more DCs in the system than there were labor hours to back them up. So when Frank went to buy a tractor, Edward would no longer accept 1 DC per 12 hr day. Edward now wanted 1.1 DCs for each labor day he needed to build a tractor.

Jasper the laborer could no longer afford to buy produce because Frank had to raise his prices to cover the cost of the tractor. So he demanded a cost of living adjustment from George the Cattle farmer.

Upon learning that George’s beef prices went up by 10% Bill raised his gas prices to cover his family expenses.

And so on.

Sadly, due to dishonest money policy, 10% of the value of the money simply disappeared. A day's work is still a days work, but for this community, a day’s work is only worth 91% of what it used to be.

For those that could raise their prices, it was a wash.

But for those who could not raise their prices, their money now buys less. A day of delivery for Ian is no longer worth a 12 hours of Bill’s gas production.

Rising prices are absolute proof that too much money is being pumped into the system!

I get inflation, but how is this a hidden tax?

Great Question.

Who benefited in the community of 10?

Read the rest at Conservative Business Network.

Will Bernanke be raising rates anytime soon? Sure doesn’t look like it.

After taking several small steps recently to take the financial system off life support, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear Wednesday that he wasn’t close to the more momentous act of raising interest rates, thus tightening credit.

In his semi-annual testimony to Congress on the economy and monetary policy, Mr. Bernanke said that short-term interest rates, now near zero, were likely to remain there for at least several more months.

He highlighted worries about what he called the “nascent recovery”—marked by high unemployment, wobbly real-estate markets, weak lending and large budget deficits. Mr. Bernanke said slack in the economy meant the benchmark federal-funds rate would remain near zero for an “extended period.”

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will update Congress on monetary policy this morning. The question-and-answer session might prove illuminating, Kelly Evans reports on the News Hub.

via Bernanke: Low Rates Still Needed – WSJ.com.

OK, so if Americans tossed aside the assumptions that are programmed into them by the media and schools, they would ask, “How does Bernanke know when the rates need raised?” Well, the truth is he doesn’t.

Just think about this whole concept of central planning when it comes to interest rates. Interest rates are just the cost of money. It should be set by supply and demand just like the cost of any other product or service. So, what would have happened if Bernanke didn’t crank interest rates down to zero to fix the bubble the Fed just created and popped? Well, rates were high because the Fed raised them before the bubble burst, which ultimately popped the bubble. Now, let’s say the Fed disappeared off the face of the earth at that moment and the free market took over. Interest rates would have been high at the moment just like it was. When the interest rates are high people save instead of spend. If for instance you are looking to invest in a building and your return is 7% but interest rates are 6%, are you going to spend that money or save it? You are better off saving it than taking the risk for an additional 1% return.

Now, with an increase in savings and a decrease in borrowing, what would happen? What happens anytime supply (money in this case) increases and demand (borrowing in this case) decreases? The price (interest rates in this case) declines. As it declines, all the sudden that investment in a new building makes more sense, and at that point you will have real investment based on real economic conditions. The interest rate will actually mean something, and you will know that currently based on the interest rate there is ample supply of money in savings to be lent out to fund this project. The funding will not dry up at the whim of the Fed half way through the project.

Now the opposite is true as well. If too many people start borrowing instead of saving, the interest rate will increase. With less savings, supply (money) decreases. When supply decreases and demand increases or remains the same, what happens? Prices (interest rates) go up.

The market can handle money and interest rates based on real conditions. Instead, much like the Soviet economy, we have a central planner who has no clue what the real conditions are. Think about it. When the economy tanked, people should have stopped borrowing/spending and began saving. That would have lowered interest rates and got investments back on track after savings was back up to a sustainable level. Instead, the Fed dropped interest rates to the floor (actually negative real interest rates), which discourages savings. Is it any wonder our economy seems to have booms and busts? Businesses decide to invest assuming that there is ample supply of money. The problem is there was no real savings, because the Fed’s zero percent interest rates discouraged savings. Then some point in their project, the Fed decides they want to raise interest rates, and funding for that project dries up. This is not based on real market conditions, but because the Fed said so. Now this business lost it’s investment, which can ultimately lead to bankruptcy, laying off employees, etc.

Hopefully this makes sense. I’m not an economist, but sometimes I play one on this blog and not a very good one.

When will we learn that government cannot create jobs? All that needs to happen is for the government to go home and leave us alone. We’ll create jobs. Now, the Senate passes another jobs bill that we have to borrow money to pay for. How idiotic is this? When has borrowing money ever made a nation or a person richer?

The Senate voted to advance a $15 billion job-creation package Monday, showing a rare hint of bipartisanship as five Republicans voted to end debate on the Democratic bill, including newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

via Senate Advances Jobs Bill – WSJ.com.

Thanks Scott Brown! Some conservative, although who didn’t see that coming. Are Republicans still going to talk about this idiot as a Presidential candidate?