The Ian Hunter show at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music was GREAT! At 72 years old, Ian still rocks and, judging from his last three studio albums, his songwriting is as good as ever. Combine all that with his current Rant Band and undeniable stage presence and you have a tremendous rock show in a venue with perfect acoustics.
What was originally billed as an acoustic show turned out to be a full-on rock show with full electric band, two encores, and brilliant musicianship from both Ian and the band. As Ian said onstage, “There’s still some life left in this old guy.”
I found a video on YouTube… from a show about a week earlier than what we saw, but pretty much the same level of performance — Ian Hunter (remember he’s 72) and the Rant Band performing the Mott classic All the Way from Memphis:
And now that I’m in a nostalgic mood, I’ve searched for some old Mott the Hoople on YouTube and found this gem from 1971. This was Mott in prime form but still a year or two from hitting it big.
A much younger Ian Hunter leads the crew, including guitarist Mick Ralphs (pre- Bad Company) in a live performance of RockNRoll Queen, one of their very first hits.
They were a notoriously great—almost riot inducing—live band that couldn’t sell a record back then. (This was pre-Bowie, pre-All the Young Dudes)
Leaders from the bankrupt California solar energy company Solyndra have declined to testify before a congressional hearing investigating their half-billion dollar government loan.
After wasting taxpayer money on the loan, now we will pay even more for the investigation. We The People must say no to crony capitalism—it’s a waste of money that we don’t have.
Lobbyists only exist where government has the power and the money to dole out favors. (Implicit argument here in favor of smaller government, tax reform, and balanced budgets—take away the magnet and the lobbyists will go away.)
Even if the federal government were smart enough to invest in a non-failing company, would that be fair to the others who didn’t receive government help?
We must not let government pick the winners and losers in our society. Equal treatment under the law is all we ask for (and it’s what the government is obliged to provide under the Constitution).
Paul Ryan: another guy that should be president someday. But, for now, we need him in congress to be our budget/tax wonk. Not only does he understand the economics, he’s pretty good at explaining the concepts too.
Why do people on the other side demonize this guy? Most likely because they are beholden to the lobbyists who profit from our overcomplicated and unfair tax system. The third video, addressing the tax issue, is especially good.
From a recent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
But yelling “Spending is too low!” is to identify a symptom, not a cause. It’s like identifying blisters — rather than the ill-fitting shoes that cause them — as the problem to be solved.
Keynesian economists explain this inadequate spending as being the result of … inadequate spending. The effect is the same as the cause.
This Keynesian explanation is adolescent. Lazily identifying the symptom as the underlying problem, Keynesians then craft a “theory” that shows just how inadequate spending can in fact cause inadequate spending. How clever of them!
It’s understandable that many people untutored in economics fall for this nonsense. Just as many untutored in geography naturally think the Earth is flat (looks that way, doesn’t it?), many untutored in economics, upon seeing businesses closing up and workers being laid off, conclude that the problem is inadequate spending (looks that way, doesn’t it?).
It’s also understandable that Keynesianism receives many politicians’ applause: It gives them intellectual cover to do what they naturally want to do — namely, spend other people’s money.
Read the full article at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Spent Theory
Like in a Stephen King novel, Keynesianism keeps coming back… no matter how many times it hasn’t worked.
It must have been important for the President to say 17 times that his bill needed to be passed, and passed post haste.
Except for the one tiny little detail. That one almost completely insignificant little speck of a thing.
Evidently there is no bill.
At some point in the near future, no doubt after a solemn weekend, when Americans can and should be united in their efforts to remember our loss on 9.11.2001, that President Obama will return from his travels, only to remember that he forgot something.
But for now we’ve been told, we’ve been commanded, we’ve been instructed, and we’ve been charged, “Pass this bill now!”
Then again how big of a step is it from passing a bill to find out what’s in it, by finally getting to read it, and passing a bill only to find out how to write it.
Perhaps former Speaker Pelosi could lend her help to the White House?
