Artwork copyright Amie Kieffer. All rights reserved.

Every year, my talented sister, Amie, develops a cartoon showcasing a fun Halloween costume idea that sends a free-markets message and reflects current events. Amie’s previous costumes include the Sexy Acorn (to draw attention to ACORN’s child sex scandal) and the Hot Teapot (to laud the everyday Americans fighting for Constitutional principles within the Tea Party movement).

This year, we chose to honor the entrepreneurial spirit of the late Steve Jobs with the Unbelievable Apple. (Jobs frequently used the word “unbelievable” to describe Apple products.)

Jobs believed hard work and passion were keys to success and he was frustrated with Eric Schmidt (Google) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) because he felt they took short-cuts around hard work and innovation and “shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

Jobs believed in the power of the free market. He once said: “We’re trying to make great products. … If the market tells us we’re making the wrong choices, we listen to the market. …That’s what a lot of customers pay us to do, is to try to make the best products we can. And if we succeed, they’ll buy ‘em. And if we don’t, they won’t, and it’ll all work itself out. And, you know, so far, I’d have to say, that people seem to be liking iPads, you know? I mean, we’ve sold one every three seconds since we launched it.”

Have fun creating your own free-markets costume this year like the Unbelievable Apple, and be sure to stop by my house for Halloween treats on October 31st! It’s 1776 Reason Avenue, Freedomville.

"Soldier Field, Home of the Chicago Bears" by Joshua Mellin on Flickr via Creative Commons.

When arch rivals like the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers go head-to-head, anything is fair game. Except cheating. Winning is the end-goal, but neither team will knowingly jeopardize its NFL standing.

There’s not a lot of love between the Bears and the Packs. This January, when the teams played each other in the NFC championship for the first time since 1941, we witnessed overblown name-calling and pompous chest-pounding.

Football fans live for match-ups that grant them the opportunity to Photoshop a bear eating a cheese wedge or a green-and-gold Pac-Man chasing down a bear to antagonize friends and coworkers rooting for the opposing side. Good-natured teasing and competition make these games fun. Sometimes it seems like anything goes, but, at the end of the day, cheating is off-limits.

What if—unbeknownst to Lovie Smith—one of the Bears’ sports doctors had accepted a bribe from someone deep within the Bears association to give the entire team performance-enhancing drugs (without the players’ knowledge) before the big game?

If this were leaked before the NFC Championship game, the NFL would have jumped in. Probes would have been ordered. Smith would have looked like a cheater at worst and incompetent at best. To make matters worse, what if the Packers took advantage of the Bears’ public relations predicament and went to the press with claims that the Bears won the 1985 Super Bowl by doping up? The Packers would instantly hurt the Bears’ reputation by casting doubt on their ethical standards.

Clearly, this never happened. No Bears sports doctor accepted doping bribes and the Packers didn’t slander the Bears. However, something very similar to my “what-if” scenario is happening right now to one of the most successful entrepreneurs and job-creators in the world, namely Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch. Image credit: FoxAllAccess.

Murdoch’s competitors are playing dirty. Instead of upping their game and trying to improve their journalistic standards, they are lowering themselves to the level of slanderous cheaters in a brazen attempt to knock Murdoch and his company News Corp. down.

Murdoch owns media companies all over the world and employs 53,000 people. His now inoperative British tabloid News of the World comprised less than one percent of his company’s holdings.

Allegedly, at least one employee within News of the World betrayed Murdoch and Murdoch’s key executives, including one employee who allegedly hacked into a missing 13-year-old girl’s cell phone and erased messages, thereby leading her parents to believe she was still alive.

Murdoch apologized profusely to the girl’s family and the public. He shut down News of the World. He refused to allow his other companies, such as Fox News, to downplay the scandal. His top tabloid executives stepped down. He dropped his $12 billion bid for British Sky Broadcasting. He submitted himself to questioning before Britain’s Parliament.

Cover page of the News of the World's final edition. Image credit: NevilleHobson on Flickr via Creative Commons.

For this honorable behavior, his rivals in the media and politics have slandered his good name and chipped away at his job-creating ability.

Most people don’t have time to watch Murdoch and his key executives defend News Corp. in three-hour-long parliamentary committee meetings. Most busy people simply scan headlines and leading paragraphs of stories written by Murdoch’s competitors like the Guardian, the Washington Post, the New York Times, TIME Magazine and the Huffington Post. Sadly, these competitors paint Murdoch as a corporate cheater without sufficient evidence. Here are some key examples:

FBI Probe: U.S. politicians impulsively lent credibility to media allegations that Murdoch’s British outlets hacked phones of 9/11 victims. Their panic sparked an FBI probe. No substantive evidence backs up these horrendous allegations. If legitimate, these claims are oddly a decade late.

Source Inflation: TIME Magazine’s July 25 issue plasters Murdoch’s face on the cover under the headline “SCANDAL!” TIME cites several “anonymous” (and therefore non-credible) “public figures” with juicy examples of News of the World’s allegedly unethical behavior.

Besides anonymous celebrities, TIME cites Hugh Grant for this feature cover story. Yes, that pretty boy who needs a 20^th Century Fox film script (think Nine Months) to sound witty.

TIME reports how Grant secretly records one former News of the World journalist stating that 20 percent of Scotland Yard takes bribes from tabloids. TIME implies that Grant caught an omniscient ex-Murdoch journalist on tape who somehow knows the exact percentage of underhanded dealings between journalists and law enforcement officials (impossible) and that Murdoch controls all British tabloid journalists (false).

Murdoch invests in high-quality journalism. Before acquiring The Wall Street Journal, he stated: “This is the greatest newspaper in America, one of the greatest in the world. It has great journalists which deserve, I think, a much wider audience.”

The evidence shows Murdoch plays to win the ethical way. His competitors in the media should follow the NFL’s lead: Teasing is fine, but slander and defamation are forms of classless cheating.

If you would like to book Katie Kieffer to speak at your professional event or college campus, please follow this link to inquire about booking a speech.

Image credit: "los angeles lit up" by Joits on Flickr via Creative Commons.

When Michael Moore looks at a skyscraper, he sees a bloated monument to rich investors. He becomes nauseous and his lunch floats back up into his throat as he imagines the tenants who can afford Class A rent: Tenants like a semi-retired banker and his entrepreneurial son who watch the sun rise from their 92^nd floor office suite while their assistant pours cold, crystal-clear water into tall glasses holding cucumber slices.

“Hmmm, how can I knock that tower down and humble those richies?” Moore wonders to himself. “I certainly can’t push it over. I’d have to give up my breakfast of chocolate covered bacon and hit the gym every morning. Way too much work for a big boy like me. … I’ve got it! I’ll ask the President to push for eliminating the carried interest tax break!”

Moore detests buildings that stand as public monuments to capitalism. In fact, he wrapped the New York Stock Exchange building in crime-scene tape for his movie, Capitalism: A Love Story.

Image credit: "Michael Moore speaks 3/5/11, part one" by Jyames on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Hollywood elites like Moore and his fans at The New York Times imply that legitimate tax incentives for entrepreneurial risk—like the carried interest tax break—are “loopholes.”

The term “loophole” confuses Americans into thinking that wealthy entrepreneurs are cheaters on par with the 5^th grade bully who brazenly steals little Ashley’s sandwich out of her hands and takes his first pilfered bite before her astonished eyes.

Rush Limbaugh explained the carried interest tax break on his July 8 talk show:

“Obama … has made this official in 2009 budget documents he’s presented that he wants to get rid of the carried interest tax break for hedge funds, private equity groups, and commercial real estate people. …essentially carried interest is profits for original investors in hedge funds, private equity firms, (and) commercial real estate that is at present taxed at capital gains levels, and they want to convert this to ordinary income, which would move it up to about 35 (percent) and then eventually 39.6 if Obama gets his tax increase wish, which would shut down commercial real estate investment.”

Limbaugh is right. Unlike other investments, commercial real estate cannot easily move overseas. U.S. developers can’t just start developing in India or China overnight. Commercial real estate investment thrives or dies here in America.

Entrepreneurial ventures such as commercial real estate developments are risky. If we want to create jobs, we must incentivize entrepreneurs to take risks.

Let’s say you want to develop an office, retail or industrial building. Before you can build, you must accept long-term, unforeseeable risks from environmental contamination, lawsuits, debts and construction delays. These liabilities mean your income stream is uncertain. You will want a financial incentive to accept these risks.

The current carried interest tax rate sits at a capital gains rate of 15 percent to incentivize general partners like developers to put their names and fortunes on the line to build projects that create countless jobs.

The commercial real estate industry directly creates white-collar jobs for leasing agents, property managers, mortgage brokers, owners, investors, bankers and asset managers. It also sustains jobs for those who depend on the health of commercial real estate such as architects, lawyers, consultants, insurance brokers, appraisers and marketing professionals. Lastly, a multitude of blue-collar resulting services such as construction and landscaping depend on commercial real estate.

Image credit: "The Skyscraper of Self" by drp on Flickr via Creative Commons.

The mainstream media contends that eliminating the carried interest tax break would only hurt hedge fund managers on Wall Street. Yet, the largest commercial real estate development association, NAIOP, reports U.S. Treasury data showing that over 46 percent of all partnerships are real estate partnerships, and carried interest plays a vital role in a large number of them. Furthermore, when the economy is healthy, commercial real estate creates over nine million American jobs and accounts for nearly one-third of U.S. GDP.

Sadly, June’s job report revealed that the U.S. added a meager 18,000 jobs and lost 9,000 in construction.  “…with the national economy’s accelerating recession, non-residential building construction outlays fell by 20.4 percent in 2009,” explains Dr. Stephen S. Fuller in his 2010 NAIOP study on the economic contributions of commercial real estate development and construction. So why would the White House want to remove entrepreneurial incentives?

The Washington Times offers a solution: Comprehensive tax reform that improves economic performance, not arbitrary tax hikes on industries like commercial real estate just to cut a budget deal.

In Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead an entrepreneurial developer predicts: “The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.”

Americans prefer working in office towers to bat caves. It’s time for Michael Moore, journalists and politicians to acknowledge that incentives like the carried interest tax break create jobs and fuel our economy.

If you would like to book Katie Kieffer to speak at your professional event or college campus, please follow this link to inquire about booking a speech.

By Katie Kieffer

Image credit: "HEAD OVER HEELS" by FUNKYAH on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Elizabeth Warren has literally gone wild. No, she did not strip off her matronly suit on a Girls Gone Wild spring break tour bus. Rather, she appears to be on a mission to strip Congress, small businesses and individual Americans of authority by instituting her own rules for how to play the financial game on both Wall Street and Main Street.

Liberals in the media hail Warren as the “protector of the middle class.” Warren may genuinely care about the middle class. Her own mantra is: “Dang gummit, somebody has got to stand up on behalf of the middle class!” Sadly, she does not understand the free markets that prevent the middle class from slipping into poverty.

She only understands rules. Before teaching law (man’s rules) at Harvard Law School, she taught Sunday school (God’s rules). Warren loves rules so much that the Ten Commandments and the Constitution are not enough for her. She wants more.

Elizabeth Warren with Tom Ashbrook of WBUR, Boston's NPR News Station. Image credit: WBUR on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Last July, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory-reform bill. Among other things, this bill ushered in a new government agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The President selected Warren to design this agency since it was her idea in the first place (she wrote an essay in 2007 that planted the idea in his mind.) Then, he named Warren his “assistant” and “special adviser” to Secretary of the Treasury.

Time Magazine reports that big-government advocates like Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee hope that the President will go one step further. Even though “(T)he bureau is still establishing the exact scope of its authority… ,” Time reports, “Taylor’s group is urging Obama to take the provocative step of a recess appointment of Warren during one of the many weeks Congress will be away this summer.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will open on July 21. The agency cannot formally act or issue rules until it has a director. President Obama has delayed naming Warren to the head of the agency in part because of the heated pressure he has received from conservatives in Congress.

Despite this ambiguity, the agency is already working on projects such as the “Know Before You Owe” campaign to simplify mortgage application paperwork, reports the New York Times.

But, do we really need another government agency with extra-Congressional authority? An agency that wants the Federal Reserve, not Congress, to set its budget? An agency developed by the same woman (Warren) who oversaw the highly-criticized financial industry bailout of $700 billion?

Warren defended her new agency to Michael Moore in an interview for the DVD version of his film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” saying: “You can’t buy a toaster in America that has a 1-in-5 chance of exploding, but you can buy a mortgage that has a 1-in-5 chance of exploding, and they don’t have to tell you about it.”

Does Warren want financial companies to write contracts at a second-grade level because she assumes consumers are too dumb or lazy to read the fine print? She tells Time Magazine that consumers shopping for loans, “… drown in a sea of words that are theoretically disclosures, but they scream, ‘Don’t read me.’”

Mortgage brokers do not go to bed at night dreaming up confusing fine print clauses. Financial companies write lengthy contracts partly to comply with existing regulations and to protect themselves from consumer lawsuits. And Warren wants more bureaucracy?

Since Warren loves to throw out appliance analogies, I’ll throw one back at her: Any legitimate appliance company in America provides its customers with a way to voice concerns and complaints. You can speak with a customer service representative in person or call a customer service line to negotiate a full or partial refund.

But, if you dislike policies from unelected government agencies like Warren’s Rule Warehouse, you don’t have a voice. Ironically, federal agencies fail to protect consumers because they do not give consumers sufficient and reasonable say in their operation and direction.

When government agencies create rules without proper input from voters and Congress, the rules will likely be anti-capitalist policies that are extremely difficult to overturn.

When Congress acts, you do have a voice because you elect your congresspeople; you can email, Tweet, Facebook or call their offices to complain, and, you can vote them out of office.

This new agency could cost financial institutions devastating amounts of money to restructure and dub down their financial products so that your dog can understand them. These costs will be passed along to the consumer, not to the government. Competition in the private sector will motivate consumer finance companies to improve, not government growth.

Whether the President appoints Warren or not, her wild hand built this house of cards. It is time to reign in agency power under Congress’ legitimate authority.

Additional references:

1. PARADE Magazine, Dec. 12, 2010, “Personalities of the Year” issue. Online archive unavailable.
2. Katie’s 2010 Edition of Agency Girls Go Wild

If you would like to book Katie Kieffer to speak at your professional event or college campus, please follow this link to inquire about booking a speech.

Image credit: "Fires ... Pink Anyone?" by AceFrenzy on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Imagine this: It’s the Fourth of July. You are a notorious pyro and your frightened neighbor lady sways you into reading my column on her flashy new iPad to temporarily distract you from setting up your annual fireworks display. As you read this, she is “accidentally” dropping her garden hose, running full blast, on the pile of fireworks you’ve been stashing up all year.

Yes, by now, your fireworks are wet garbage. Don’t panic. Keep reading. Trust me, she’s not as sneaky as she thinks. I’ll tell you how to ignite your neighborhood with a show like it has never seen before. You won’t even need to make an emergency run to the tent down the street selling fireworks.

People like your neighbor lady who fear fireworks on the Fourth of July generally dread noise, uncertainty and risk. So, let’s beat them at their own game. Tell Little Miss Scaredy Pants and the rest of your neighbors that you are hosting a can’t-miss Fourth of July celebration tonight featuring a “live” performance by pop star Katy Perry in your backyard.

Image credit: "katy perry- warped" by kimberly marie lawson on Flickr via Creative Commons.

What your neighbors don’t know is that you will be “performing” alongside Perry at your BBQ this evening. Since you only have a few hours to prepare, I’ll help you practice rocking out to selections from Perry’s hit single Firework. Crank up the volume. Here we go:

KATY

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again…

Do you know that there’s still a chance for you
Cause there’s a spark in you

YOU

There are people in every neighborhood across America—including yours—who are struggling. A man who lost his job. A woman who is underemployed. A teenager who can’t find summer work. Families who have skipped their traditional week-long summer vacations. Homeowners who are ravaged by foreclosures, floods and tornadoes.

This month, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since November of last year. When people are sad, depressed and angry, the last thing they feel like doing is celebrating. So, tonight, commemorate our adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 by inspiring your friends and neighbors to embrace freedom and become “fireworks.”

KATY

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

YOU

This Independence Day, when your friends and neighbors come over for a BBQ, resolve to be a sounding board for those who are feeling down about their financial situations.

If they’re a jobless young person facing a 24 percent teen unemployment rate, ask them to consider starting their own seasonal business. They could use their talents to start a lawn-care, house-cleaning or technology business this summer. When the school year starts, they could focus on marketing and building up a clientele so that their business will be running full-force by next summer.

If they’re an unemployed or underemployed adult, ask them open-ended questions about their talents and dreams. Ask them to consider taking the entrepreneurial leap—while still looking for traditional corporate jobs and taking interviews. They have nothing to lose, except maybe sleep.

If there are ravaged homes within or nearby your neighborhood, enlist your neighbors to join you in doing something nice to help the homeowners. Bring food, supplies, flowers, toys—whatever help or joy you can think of.

KATY

Baby you’re a firework
Come on let your colors burst
Make ‘em go “Oh, oh, oh!”
You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe-awe-awe

YOU

In a sense, fireworks represent taking risks, facing danger and fearlessly speaking out. Encourage your friends and neighbors to take Katy Perry’s advice and become fireworks.

The economic downturn is impacting everyone. The only way we can crawl out of this ditch is if we hoist each other up, not push each other down. Together, we need to advocate for pro-business policies, lower taxes and government spending cuts. We must revive the economy so that honest, hard-working Americans are no longer cornered into relying on the government for assistance when they lose their jobs, homes and savings—or are simply unable to find enough work—and not for lack of trying.

If we work together to revitalize the free market system in America, entrepreneurs will take risks, companies will create jobs, unemployment levels will plunge and Americans will once again be able to proudly create their own financial security. In a free market, ordinary people can help each other out infinitely more than the government.

Now, go invite your neighbor lady to your BBQ tonight. Just be sure she leaves her garden hose at home because there’s a rumor that Katy Perry’s sound crew will be delivering a truckload of fireworks to your house around 8:00 p.m. Be ready!

Katy Perry's band. Image credit: "Katy Perry" by Michael @ NW Lens on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Please note: This lighthearted column does not represent Katy Perry, nor is it endorsed by her.

If you would like to book Katie Kieffer to speak at your professional event or college campus, please follow this link to inquire about booking a speech.

Image credit: "sunlight smile" by espresso marco on Flickr via Creative Commons.

The latest Pew Research Center poll shows that young people (ages 18 – 28) are happier now than they have been in over 30 years. Why is this? Aren’t we in the middle of a financial meltdown in America? Aren’t the costs of living going up? Aren’t young people losing their jobs? If you are down on America or down on your life, I’ll help you change your mindset to match that of today’s youth. I promise you, you’ll be happier for it.

I believe young people today are happier for two reasons: First, most Millennials want to live more like grownups and less like their parents who sometimes act like babies. And, second, they understand and are excited by the opportunities America has to rebound out of recession and back to greatness. Let me explain:

Young people find happiness in maturity

Young people today seem happy to act like old souls. It’s suddenly cool to be retrospective and old-fashioned. If Lady Gaga, 2010‘s top-earning pop star, says she’s “old-fashioned” in her personal life, you know it’s cool to be old-fashioned. It doesn’t matter if Gaga really acts old-fashioned when she’s at home or not. The fact is, she markets herself that way because she knows “old” is the new black.

The hottest new fashion pundit is a 14-year-old named Tavi Gevinson, whose fashion sense snubs the main-stream ” adult formula” for attractiveness: Super sexy clothes + Smashed-on makeup = Hot. In contrast, Gevinson’s sense of “cool” involves wearing lots of layers and occasionally dying her hair grey.

Yep, that’s right, grandma-grey. Maybe she’s not sexy, but she’s definitely cool. So cool, in fact, that she attends events like the Chanel couture show in Paris and receives 35,000 hits a day on her blog.

Tavi Gevinson. Image credit: "photoshoot!" by stweedy on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Oh yeah, and who was the top-selling artist of 2010? It wasn’t S&M artist, RiRi. It was Taylor Swift. Young Americans just can’t download enough music from the girl whose vintage sense of romance comes through in her songs and her daily life, where she has confessed she likes boys who accept her penchant for making crafts with glitter.

Meanwhile “grown-up,” middle-aged Americans are skipping work and getting fake doctor’s sick notes in Wisconsin so that they can walk in protest despite the fact that the average public sector salary and benefits package is already far greater than that of the private sector. I’d call them “cry babies,” but that might hurt their tender feelings.

Young people see real solutions

Second, I believe today’s young people are happy because they see the way out. They are flexible, creative, ethical and innovative enough to understand what needs to be done to end this recession:  Things like economic reform, austerity and ending our costly and bloody attempts at policing the world, as I discussed here.

Image credit: "sunrise in the city" by Tattooed JJ on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Pew reports that, in the past few years, more Americans consider themselves “independents” than in the past seventy years. Furthermore, most young people (40 percent) consider themselves “moderate.” Just 29 percent call themselves “liberal” while 28 percent consider themselves “conservative.”

Young people have begun to move away from the Democratic party and are increasingly giving the President less-than-favorable approval ratings. They generally question whether the U.S. should continue to push her military might around the Middle East. To me, this indicates that most young people are more issues-focused and less likely to jump on a partisan bandwagon and proudly wear a big fat “D” or “R” on their chests like their parents may have.

Yes, many Millenials consider themselves “socially liberal,” but that doesn’t mean that they all think the government should tell them how to live their personal lives. In fact, in 2010, Pew did another study showing that a majority of Americans, regardless of whether they considered themselves to be “Republican,” “Democrat” or “Independent,” view and understand the terms “states rights,” “family values,” “civil liberties,” “civil rights” and “capitalism” in a positive way.

Since Millennials favor ideas like states rights and individual freedom, I think that they prefer to make personal choices rather than bow to sweeping federal mandates when it comes to social issues. My assessment is that Millenials believe it’s best to give citizens the opportunity to choose the type of social structure they want in their own states.

Image credit: "Freedom text" by jcolman on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Recent Pew studies show that, since 2007, young people are more likely than their parents to say that America should put economic stability before environmental concerns: “Surprisingly, declines since 2007 in support for economic sacrifices to protect the environment have been particularly large among young people and political independents.”

Perhaps the hyperventilating about a hypothetical global warming crisis comes from Al Gore’s generation, and the paranoia just getting pushed on Millenials. How “inconveniently true” for young people who now live in a country that won’t drill for it’s own oil, but is more than happy to buy it from the Saudis. Certainly most young people, including me, care about the conserving the earth, but no one can blame our generation for “Climategate.”

I think young people are “re-defining” the term liberal. To them “liberal” really means “free.” Without realizing it, I think many young people are moving closer to the original or “classical” definition of liberal from the nineteenth century which emphasized free markets and individual liberties.

Well, after all this “grown-up” talk, I think I’ll pull on my warm knee highs and a granny sweater like Tavi Gevinson and enjoy a hot cup of tea to celebrate happiness and freedom.

Image credit: "Tea Glass" by Astro Guy on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Image credit: "Where the real business takes place" by SVTHERLAND on Flickr via Creative Commons.

It’s game night everyone! You won’t win a fake prize like a pile of plastic tokens or a stack of paper money. In this game, you win the real deal: Jobs. So, bring your friends and get ready to go from mopey paupers to upbeat workers.

I invented the game “Job Trap” when I realized that Mouse Trap was a waste of time and that I’d have more fun accomplishing something in life than fighting my friends for cheese-shaped tokens. I thought about the biggest economic problem in the U.S. today, the high unemployment rate, and decided to create a game to fix this problem. Here’s how you play:

Object of the game

Win as many jobs as possible. If you win more jobs than you need, you become an employer. As an employer, you have the ability to hire people to work for you. If you’ve always wanted a good job and a professional staff, then here’s your chance to win both.

Game pieces

The only thing you need in this game is your mind. Bring your creativity, your ingenuity and your common sense.

Rules of the game

To win the game, you need to “untrap” the most jobs. At the beginning of the game, each player is challenged with the same two traps. Each player has one hour to figure out how to release the most jobs from these traps.

Image credit: "businessmen" by huntz on Flickr via Creative Commons.

At the end of the hour, a panel of judges including myself will review each player’s solutions and determine approximately how many jobs their unique solutions have the potential to create. The player whose solutions are deemed by the judges to create the most jobs wins.

The two job traps

• College. The cost of college tuition is rising significantly faster than inflation and wages are not keeping up with inflation, reports The Wall Street Journal. The average salary for college graduates dipped 1.7 percent from 2009 to 2010, reports The New York Times.
  • Win by creating well-paying jobs for college graduates that outpace the costs of inflation and college tuition. Hint: Look into repairing the economic damage caused by Clinton-era loose home-ownership policies.
• Over 1.2 million patent applications stall at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. American inventors and entrepreneurs have patents awaiting approval that could create jobs, but our government bureaucracy is stalling the process. Engineers in China are reading the U.S. patent applications that are available online and then copying American ingenuity and selling it around the world, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  • Win by creating jobs through innovation and entrepreneurship. Hint: Look into speeding up the patent approval process and shielding U.S. patent applications from the eyes of foreign copycats.

Good luck and play to win the game!

Image credit: "Vimmi With The Dunk" by SVTHERLAND on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Image credit: "The shop around the corner" by Shannon K on Flickr via Creative Commons.

My 2011 New Year’s Eve Party was crashed. Let me rephrase that: My plans to host a 2011 New Year’s Eve party were foiled. This year, I was expecting over 700 guests to my humble abode on 1776 Capitalist Curve. Last year, I hosted a New Year’s Eve party that included a celebrity mixologist and gastropub chef, live music, helicopter rides, overnight accommodations and breakfast the next morning. Well, my 2011 party was going to make that party seem like a yawn.

This week, my guest list of over 700 dwindled down to a sad 37 due to the NYE Party Crashers. They “pre-crashed” my party by sending the foul weather that stranded my East Coast friends and delayed or canceled flights for my friends throughout the rest of the country. They sent the foul winter storms that are preventing my friends in Moscow, London and Frankfurt from traveling. And, now, they are warning of a blizzard for New Year’s Eve in Minnesota, where I live.

So, who are the 2011 NYE Party Crashers?

Good guess, but, no, they are not the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, the Vikings have clearly “offended the gods of football this season and are sentenced to sail ghostlike through the rest of their schedule,” as Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer quips.

Yes, the “Vikings are getting what they deserve for putting us through another season of All Brett All the Time.” And, yes, the sins of the Vikings (including alleged sexting, incompetent management, hiring and then firing Randy Moss, sustaining Brad Childress for far too long, and putting all their eggs in Number Four’s basket) “demand punishment.” But, still, even the Vikings are not malevolent enough to bring on these storms.

Image credit: "Inside of Champagne Glass" by TimmyGUNZ on Flickr via Creative Commons.

The real party crashers are the global warming activists who infuriated the heavens to the point of sending down the winter blizzards that derailed my New Year’s Eve plans. They are:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

Effective Jan. 2, 2011, the EPA will unconstitutionally begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide emissions. This will undoubtedly “kill millions of jobs” and force the U.S. into “a de facto construction moratorium on industrial facilities that could provide badly needed jobs,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

Despite the global warming scandals revealed in “Climategate” and the fact that scientists find climate change to be “natural” and carbon dioxide to potentially be beneficial to the planet – the EPA continues to grab more control over greenhouse gas emissions.

It seems wrong, if not immoral, for a government agency (not Congress) and a few judicial activists to assume the authority to regulate businesses that emit carbon dioxide to the point of extinction or instability.

The EPA states that, “The largest source of CO2 emissions globally is the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas in power plants, automobiles, industrial facilities and other sources.” My assessment is that it would be unethical and hypocritical for the EPA to regulate U.S. oil companies and power plants out of business.

The U.S. buys oil from Saudi Arabia instead of loosening up restrictions and allowing the U.S. to become energy-independent on her own resources, as I blogged here, here and here. 80 percent of the September 11, 2001 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but we continue to fuel this economy while weakening our own economy and risking our national security.

Until the U.S. faces her own hypocrisy and stops sending blood money to other countries while destroying her own economy and robbing her own citizens of jobs, I have a feeling the heavens will continue to send foul weather across the globe. Maybe it’s time for us to heed the “message”: Global warming is an unproven theory that has been exploited for political gain.

Here’s to hoping Congress steps in and prevents the EPA from following through on its unconstitutional ambitions. I want to have my New Year’s Eve party and I want every one of my 700-plus guests to be in attendance.

Image credit: "Strawberry in champagne" by John Wardell (Netinho) on Flickr via Creative Commons.

"Hot Tea Pot" Halloween costume. Art copyright Amie Kieffer. All rights reserved.

Remember last Halloween when I showcased the Sexy Acorn Halloween costume? This year, my sister Amie and I decided to keep the “sexy” while taking out the “scandal” in our 2010 costume.

Let me introduce you to the Hot Teapot. It’s so hot that you will be able to see the steam coming out of this little getup. This teapot whistles with all the energy, passion and engagement that the Tea Party has brought to America this year.

When I spoke at the MN Tea Party’s Tax Day Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol this year, I experienced the positive energy behind the Tea Party first-hand. I can think of no better way to celebrate Halloween – a few days before the midterm elections – than to don this costume.

Reuters reports that more Americans (two out of five) plan to wear a Halloween costume this year.  “In recent years, Halloween has provided a welcome break from reality, allowing many Americans a chance to escape from the stress the economy has put on their family and incomes,” explains National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay.

So, if you plan to join in on the fun, why not do it in a meaningful way and stand up for the foundations that our country was built on, like the U.S. Constitution, free enterprise, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!

Art copyright Amie Kieffer. All rights reserved.

'fifteenthousand' by dalechumbley on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Below is a step-by-step guide for “How to Cheat On Your Mortgage.” This manual was written by a professional satirist (yours truly) and none of these tactics should be tried in real life unless your goal is life behind bars.

By following my recommendations, you can ‘cheat’ on your mortgage. It is even easier than cheating on your spouse online via The Ashley Madison Agency (which I do not condone, by the way). How sweet is that?

Step one, take your mortgage out with a bank that took a bailout.

The bigger the bailout amount, the better. You want to make sure your mortgage is held by an institution that feels invincible enough to laugh in the face of the law. What better way than to partner with a bank that is in bed with the Feds?

'Bailout Wine' by pwkpwkpwk on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Here is a list of financial institutions that are making headlines for alleged foreclosure fraud. Notice that they ALL received huge bailouts from Washington.

1. Wells Fargo & Co.
2. JP Morgan Chase & Co.
3. Bank of America
4. PNC Financial
5. Litton Loan Servicing (A division of Goldman Sachs)
6. GMAC Mortgage

It’s not exactly a coincidence that each of these banks took massive bailouts and now are under fire for employing ‘robo-signers‘ such as ‘hair stylists, Walmart floor workers and people who had worked on assembly lines and installed them in “foreclosure expert” jobs with no formal training,’ as Michelle Conlin with The Associate Press reports.

'Toy Robot' by parl on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Robo-signers are gaining attention for admitting ignorance of basic industry terms such as “mortgage,” “affidavit” and “complaint,” while acknowledging that “they knew they were lying.”

My assessment is that these companies may have chosen to repeatedly run red lights because the cops have let them off with warnings (and handsome sums to boot) before. So, if you are looking to cut a shady deal on your own mortgage, look no further than the aforementioned institutions.

Step Two, ensure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the FHA backs your mortgage.

This shouldn’t be hard considering 99 percent of all mortgages in the U.S. are backed by the government-run companies (Fannie and Freddie) and government agency (FHA).

You need the “F” stamp of approval if you’re looking for a sugar daddy for your mortgage because this entire housing crisis and financial recession started with HUD during the Clinton Administration as I blogged here. If you are serious about cheating on your mortgage, it is essential that you get the Federal Government on your side.

As you know, I’ve defended banks throughout this recession here and here. I’ve also stood up for Wall Street here and here. I’ve even defended Goldman Sachs on my blog. I fully realize that banks and big businesses are not the big dogs that initially drove us into recession. The government ushered in this little (cough) foreclosure crisis we are facing today. The next time you hear the government pointing fingers at “irresponsible” banks, investors and home buyers you may want to question whether the government is impartial.

Note: Obviously, this article is meant to be humorous. If you think I’m advocating cheating and fraud, you may want to have your sense of humor checked.