It’s Your Money Honey: A Girl’s Guide to Saving, Investing, and Building Wealth at Every Age and Life Stage By Laura J. McDonald and Susan L. Misner

Wiley, 293 pages $24.95

Laura McDonald and Susan Mis-ner wrote It’s Your Money Honey to expand on the success of their website, www.goldengirlfinance.ca, and to reach more women.

Misner, a financial adviser, and McDonald, who has a communications and marketing background, founded their website in July 2010, to get more women engaged in finances. Today, they have 35,000 opt-in sub-scribers to their online newsletter.

The two Winnipeg women were in Vancouver this week to promote the book, subtitled A Girl’s Guide to Saving, Investing, and Building Wealth at Every Age and Life Stage.

“The website talks about cur-rent issues and what’s going on in pop culture, while the book is more geared toward basic and more complex principles of finance and investing,” McDonald said. “The website is designed to make finances more accessible and relevant to modern women.”

It has tools, calculators and articles directed toward women in different stages of their lives.

Misner, who has been a financial adviser for nearly 18 years, said she saw a real need to get more women educated and interested in finances.

“We really want to inspire, engage and motivate women to play in the financial game and surround them-selves with that team of experts so that when things happen in their lives, they’re operating from a position of financial strength,” Misner said.

“With the book we wanted to create a handbook for women that they would refer to throughout their lives.”

The book is designed as a hand-book, to be referred to at transition times throughout a woman’s life. Chapters are arranged in order of a typical life: from starting out on one’s own to getting married, having kids, making major purchases and planning for retirement.

“The No. 1 tip we share is just to get engaged,” McDonald said. “If you’re intimidated about the investment industry or the stock market, just start learning the terminology.”

After that’s been achieved, McDonald explained, it’s important to make relationships, to form your own personal “board of directors” or people who will be there for you in a crisis, such as advisers, lawyers and tax experts.

“One of the biggest expenses over our lifetime is taxes,” McDonald said. “You want to make sure you’re taking a close look at your tax bill, that you’re claiming the deductions and credits that you’re eligible for, and that you work with a great tax specialist who knows what you can and cannot take advantage of.”

Another tip, particularly for mothers, is to get themselves ready for retirement.

“So often women will put money away in their child’s education fund, rather than for their retirement,” McDonald said. “We always say, your children can borrow for their education, but you can’t borrow for retirement.”

Misner likened their book to What to Expect When You’re Expecting, a well-known pregnancy book that takes a woman step-by-step through the nine months before she gives birth.

“We like to call our book What to Expect When You’re Investing,” Mis-ner said.

“We think every woman should own it.”

The straightforward, sometimes irreverent book is written in no-non-sense language, using anecdotes and real-life situations that women deal with to explain financial principles, Misner said.

“What we’ve been told is that we’ve finally made finance relatable,” McDonald said.

“We’ve had readers write and say they’ve read our book in one night, and that they got so much information, but that they also couldn’t stop laughing in relating to what we were saying.”

Sun books editor tsherlock@vancouversun.com

Article source: http://www.vancouversun.com/Money+honey+gets+tune/6174969/story.html

Eclectica’s acquired a nice reputation among contrarian investors, thanks to some enviable results. The London-based Eclectica Asset Management saw a 12% return last year in its flagship Eclectica hedge fund, and an eye-popping 46% gain in a new fund that buys credit-default protection on Japanese corporations. Much owes to the relentless logic and cheeky inventiveness of Hugh Hendry, chief investment officer. The Glasgow-born Hendry tells Barron’s why he expects a hard landing in China, and why hyperdeflation will precede hyperinflation.

Barron’s:
What makes a great macro fund manager?

Hendry: First and foremost, an ability to establish a contentious premise outside …

Article source: http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748703786004577221590093305080.html?mod=BOL_twm_fs

There are moments throughout a season that define the direction of a team. For St. Petersburg Catholic, that moment came Jan. 12.

The Barons were hosting Academy of the Holy Names and trailed by 13 points at halftime. Instead of panicking, they chipped away at the lead to win 47-45.

“That was the game where they started believing in themselves,’’ SPC coach Nick Vandewalle said. “It was the first game where they thought, ‘Oh my goodness, we’re down.’ And they proved to themselves that they can come back.’’

Since that night, the Barons have won 10 of 11 games and are one win from advancing to the Class 3A state semifinals in Lakeland. Standing in their way is defending state champ Community School of Naples.

A big reason for the Barons’ success (25-4) has been Annie Artise, who averages 13 points per game and is a huge 3-point threat. But teams can’t just focus on Artise.

Brittney Dunbar gets 12 points per game and was key in the region semifinals against Indian Rocks Christian. Michelle Halapio chips in 11 points a game and plays tenacious defense. Katie Gibbons averages eight points.

“Annie has certainly been big for us,’’ Vandewalle said. “But it’s not just her. One night it could be Brittney, the next night Michelle, the next night Katie. One of those four players has led us in scoring at one time this season.

“But the real key for us are players who don’t get their names in the newspaper. Players like Madison (Saganowich) and Christy (Lyons). They push everyone in practice, set the picks, open up the lanes for the other players to score. Teams have to have players like that to be successful.’’

There are seven seniors on the St. Petersburg Catholic roster. Several underclassmen also see playing time, which means the Barons have enough depth to stay with most teams. It also allows Vandewalle to play a pressing full-court defense and an aggressive offense.

That defense was on full display in the district final. The Barons held Indian Rocks Christian to just four second-half points, none in the fourth quarter, for a comeback win.

Clearly, that kind of effort is needed against Community School (19-6). The Seahawks have won their past four games by an average of 28 points and have scored no fewer than 45 points.

The Barons’ strategy is pretty simple.

“We’ll probably end up throwing the kitchen sink at them,’’ Vandewalle said.

Class 5A region final
Who: Lakewood (19-10) at Titusville (18-6)

When: 7 Saturday night

How they advanced: Lakewood d. Robinson 63-8; d. Bradenton Southeast 57-48. Titusville d. Lakeland Tenoroc 62-17; d. Orlando Lake Nona 63-47

Notable: Titusville advanced to the state semifinals last season but graduated eight players from that team. Vyonna Prince  is the Terriers’ main scoring threat, scoring  22 against Lake Nona. Titusville has won six straight games.
Since a loss to Palm Harbor University in the regular-season finale, Lakewood has won five straight.  Guard Alexis Ungro returned after a one-game suspension and scored 11  against Bradenton Southeast. The defending Class 4A state champ has won eight straight postseason games dating to last season. Lakewood coach Necole Tunsil will join the team late Saturday. She is attending a wake in Lake City for her  aunt  and will drive from there to Titusville in the afternoon.

Final word: “We are peaking at the right time, no doubt,’’ Tunsil said. “That’s the same thing that happened with us last year.’’

Article source: http://www.tampabay.com/hometeam/blog/girls-basketball-spread-wealth-mentality-works-wonders-barons/12890/

Talent, skill, ability – whatever you want to call it – will not make you successful. Sure, it helps. But a wealth of psychological research over the past few decades shows loud and clear that it’s the psychological vehicles that take you to the top.

You can have the best engine in the world, but if you can’t be bothered to drive, you won’t get anywhere.

Psychologists have proposed lots of different vehicles over the years: grit, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, optimism, passion, inspiration.

They are all important. But one vehicle, is particularly undervalued and under-appreciated. And that’s hope.

Hope often gets a bad rap. For some, it conjures up images of blissful naiveté. That’s a shame. Science suggests that hope, at least as defined by psychologists, matters a lot.

To be sure, hope is not a new concept in psychology. In 1991, the eminent psychologist Charles R. Snyder and his colleagues came up with what they called the hope theory: The person who has hope has the will and determination that goals will be achieved, and a set of different strategies at their disposal to reach their goals.

Put simply, hope involves the will – and different ways – to get there. (Where there’s a will, there’s a way, goes the aphorism.)

Why is hope important? Well, life is difficult. There are many obstacles. Having goals is not enough. One has to keep get-ting closer to those goals amid all the in-evitable twists and turns of life.

Hope allows people to approach problems with a mindset and strategy set suit-able to success, thereby increasing the chances they will actually accomplish their goals.

Hope is not just a feel-good emotion, but a dynamic motivational system. Snyder and his colleagues argue that a person’s level of hope leads him or her to choose performance, or learning, goals.

“Learning goals” are conducive to growth and improvement. People with learning goals are actively engaged, constantly planning strategies to meet their goals and monitoring their progress to stay on track.

A bulk of research suggests that learning goals are positively related to success across a wide swatch of human life – from academic achievement to sports to arts to science to business.

Those lacking hope, on the other hand, may adopt what psychologists call “mastery goals.” They choose easy tasks that don’t offer a challenge or opportunity for growth.

When they fail, they quit. People with mastery goals act helpless and feel a lack of control over their environment. They don’t believe in their capacity to obtain the kind of future they want.

In other words, they have no hope. Science is on the side of hope. Snyder and his colleagues came up with a way of measuring hope, both as a stable trait of an individual and as a state anyone can be in anytime.

The Hope Scale, their book which has been translated into more than 20 languages, includes items relating to “agency” (for example, “I energetic-ally pursue my goals”) and “pathways” (“There are lots of ways around any problem”).

Whether measured as a trait or a state, hope is related to positive outcomes.

Article source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Here+hoping/6173453/story.html

Are we in the middle of a Class War? Billionaire Warren Buffett thinks so, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Most Americans agree; a recent Pew Poll found “Two-thirds of Americans said they think there are ‘very strong’ or ‘strong’ class conflicts in society.” But there’s a notable lack of enthusiasm for making fundamental change.

One would think that with the success of the Occupy Wall Street movement, there would be a strong push for radical social reform. After all, 49 percent of Americans believe the U.S. economic system to be “unfair.” But a recent Gallup Poll found that most Americans are not militant on this issue; they would rather promote policies to “grow and expand the economy” than they would to “reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor.”

This result is perplexing. Time Magazine asked respondents if they agreed with the positions advocated by Occupy Wall Street and discovered extraordinary concurrence. 86 percent agreed that, “Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington.” 79 percent agreed that, “The gap between rich and poor in the United States has grown too large.” 71 percent agreed with “Executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted.” And 68 percent agreed that, “The rich should pay more taxes.” Nonetheless, there was a 45-50 percent enthusiasm gap, because many Americans, who expressed these strong positive sentiments, didn’t support Occupy Wall Street. On the one hand the 99 percent are concerned about the growing economic divide, but on the other hand they appear unready to do much about it.

Perhaps working Americans do not understand how grave the situation is. A recent Mother Jones article graphically illustrated the problem: in the last 30 years the income of the one-percent has quadrupled and everyone else has experienced no growth. The Washington Post noted that in 2008, the average family income for the bottom 90 percent was $31,244 and that was a 1 percent decline from 1970. During the same period, the top .1 percent saw their income increase by 385% to $5.6 million. (The wealth divide is even more extreme; while the top 1 percent earn 21 percent of the nation’s income, they now control 36 percent of our wealth.)

The good news is that there is growing awareness among the 99 percent that they’ve been ripped off; that they’re engaged in a decades-long class war and their side is losing. As a result working Americans are in favor of raising taxes on the 1 percent. And there’s some evidence that the 99 percent are waking up to the problem of big money in politics, the problems caused by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. The bad news is that this may not be enough to save our Democracy.

Over the last 30 years, the United States has been looted. The rich and powerful, the 1 percent, have taken a disproportionate share of the economic gains that we’ve all worked for. As a consequence America is teetering on the brink of Plutocracy. To remedy this inequity and restore Democracy, fundamental changes must be made.

The first step is recognition that we’re in a class war and must take sides. Recently ani difranco updated the words to the old Union song, “Which Side Are You On?” They aptly summarize the current political situation:

Thirty years of diggin’
Got us in this hole
The curse of Reaganomics
Has finally taken its toll.
Lord knows the free market
Is anything but free
It costs dearly to the planet
And the likes of you and me.
I don’t need those money lenders
Sucking on my tit
A little socialism
Don’t scare me one bit!
Which side are you on now
Which side are you on?

On one level, the 2012 election will be a referendum on the economy and Obama’s leadership. But at another, deeper level the election will be about class warfare: are Americans prepared to stop the looting? Are they prepared to take sides?

Barack Obama is not a perfect candidate but at least he is willing to talk about class warfare and to propose common sense steps towards economic justice. That’s a big difference from Mitt Romney who doesn’t think we have a class problem or issues with economic fairness and says of people who suggest this “[Its] about envy. It’s about class warfare.”

Which side are you on?

So are we just consumers
Or are we citizens?
Are we gonna make more garbage
Or are we gonna make amends?
Are you part of the solution
Or are you part of the con?
Which side are you on now
Which side are you on?

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-burnett/class-warfare-which-side-_1_b_1284207.html

Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:03pm GMT

Feb 17 (Reuters) – Norway’s $550 billion sovereign
wealth fund, which wants a bigger voice at the U.S. companies in
which it invests, counts a recent corporate governance change at
oil and gas explorer Pioneer Natural Resources Co as an
early success.

Norges Bank Investment Management, whose U.S. holdings
account for about a fifth of its funds and which last reported
owning 0.5 percent of Pioneer, welcomed the Dallas company’s
decision to have majority voting for directors and ultimately
hold annual elections for board members.

“Pioneer, after discussions that we had with them, have done
some major governance improvements,” Anne Kvam, global head of
ownership for the fund, said in an interview. “We are happy to
see that.”

Late last year, the fund decided to target six companies it
felt had the worst governance among its U.S. holdings. It also
filed proposals with Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab
, Western Union, Staples and CME Group
to make it easier for shareholders to nominate
directors.

“We are long-term shareholders – our investment horizon is
30 to 50 years,” Kvam said. “In that long context it’s quite
essential for us to have good corporate governance and
accountable boards. We see this as a means to reduce unwanted
risk in a portfolio.”

The fund has since withdrawn its so-called proxy access
proposal for Pioneer.

On Jan. 26, Pioneer said its board approved an amendment of
the company bylaws to require majority votes from shareholders
for directors, instead of just a plurality, while phasing out
board member classification and having them all face annual
elections by 2015.

A Pioneer spokeswoman declined to comment further on Friday.

(Reporting by Anne Saphir in Chicago and Braden Reddall in San
Francisco. Editing by Gunna Dickson)

Article source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/norway-swf-pioneer-idUKL2E8DHCX520120217

Africa is not poor, but its wealth is undeveloped. God has positioned the Church to catalyze prosperity on the continent using the authority and resources He has already provided.

February 15, 2012, Johannesburg, South Africa

On overwhelming majority of the Church believes that Africa is a place that needs to be saved from poverty, disease, and conflict. While these are realities, God’s picture is very different. Africa will be a part of God’s blueprint to save the world and to transfer wealth to His Kingdom.

This is the time for Africa to arise and shine (Isaiah 60:1)! It is time for Africa to fulfill its Kingdom destiny in all Seven Mountains – media, government, religion, education, family, celebration/arts, and economy. Creating Wealth by Harnessing Opportunities in Africa: God’s Way to Multiply the Assets in Your Storehouses will help align you with God’s work in the business and economy sphere in Africa to usher wealth into God’s purposes, your storehouses, into Africa, and to the rest of the world.

This book is based on prophecy and biblical premise for Africa’s position in the Kingdom brought from Heaven to Earth. But, we will also share current signs, strategies, and practical pathways to tap into the wealth that God has placed in Africa, both spiritual and natural.

This book shares:

• God’s picture of Africa and its wealthy position
• Signs that the time has come for God’s vision to be fulfilled
• Where  and how Christians can tap into the wealth
• How Christians have a business advantage in Africa
• How to leverage the assets God has given you to be successful in Africa

Creating Wealth is being officially launched in Africa at the Global Business Roundtable annual conference on March 9, 2012 at the Sandton Convention Centere, Sandton, South Africa. Co-authors, Lauri Elliott and Nissi Ekpott, will speak on a panel at the conference. Both authors will be available for media interviews on March 8^th and 9^th in Johannesburg.

Creating Wealth is published by Conceptualee, Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. The book’s website is www.create-wealth-in-africa.com.

The book is available online at Kalahari (www.kalahari.com) and Amazon (www.amazon.com) in print and electronic formats. An audio version is available for sale and download at www.create-wealth-in-africa.com. The book is coming to local South African bookstores soon.

For further contact:

Darlene Tolbert
Communications Office
Conceptualee, Inc.
+1.704.819.3333 (Mobile Phone)
+1.704.800.7499 (Fax)
[email protected]  (Email)

About Lauri Elliott

God has chosen Lauri to be a vessel to share the strength in business, media, and education that she is divinely given (Isaiah 32:2). This is manifested in Lauri’s role as a strategist with over 25 years of business experience, specializing in global business, innovation, technology, and new ventures and start-ups. She serves entrepreneurs, small, micro, and medium-size enterprises (SMMEs), and individual investors.

Lauri is the Director of Afribiz™ Media, a Division of Conceptualee, Inc. In this capacity, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Afribiz.info (www.afribiz.info) and Africa the Good News (www.africagoodnews.com).

Lauri has developed a solid reputation as a new media leader. She is also the primary host of Afribiz.fm™, a regular online radio show about doing business and investing in Africa.

In addition, Lauri is the author of Export to Explode Cash Flow and Profits: Creating New Streams of Business in Asia, Africa, and the Americas and Going Global on a Dime: The Entrepreneur’s Handbook to Tapping the Global Marketplace.

Lauri operates out of the apostolic, prophetic, and teaching mantles. To reach Lauri, visit http://www.lauri-elliott.com.

About Nissi Ekpott

Nissi is a Christian entrepreneur, business developer, and catalyst for African restoration. Raised in Nigeria, he started his first business – a dry cleaning service – at the age of 15. Over the years, he gained experience through conventional education, and several hands-on experiences.

Nissi consults for small and big businesses in Africa, touching business and leadership development and providing services, including business tours and training programs for public and private sector officials.

Nissi coordinates BizConnect Afrika, a place businesses connect, as well as share ideas, opportunities, and resources. He also serves as a business journalist for Afribiz.net, a media brand of Conceptualee, Inc. (U.S.) and other websites and magazines in South Africa.

Nissi believes in the Word of God, and its power to transform people, nations, and systems. He functions in a prophetic ministry, with a God-given understanding of biblical worldview.

He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with his wife and two beautiful daughters. To reach Nissi, visit http://www.neuafrika.com.

About Hartmut Sieper

Hartmut is a Christian banker, business consultant, and investment specialist.

Hartmut is convinced that the time has come for Africa to arise in many aspects, including business and finance. In anticipating this trend and by following God’s guidance, he has founded the company Trans Africa Invest to attract businesses, companies, and investors from German-speaking countries to African markets. He is working closely together with local partners in 15 African countries. He is the sole investment adviser of a Luxembourg-based, Pan-African mutual fund which is investing in listed African securities.

He has written several books about investing. His latest books are Investing in Africa – The Wealth of the Black Continent and Cape of Good Business – Strategies for Long-Term Success in South Africa (both are written in German), as well as Tapping the Wealth of African Stocks. In the German media, he is considered as one of the leading Africa experts in Germany.

Hartmut is married and lives in northern Bavaria, Germany. He attends a free evangelical local church. Since 2006, he is a member of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce, ICCC. Hartmut can be reached at http://www.trans-africa-invest.com.

About the African New Economy Workgroup

Hartmut Sieper, Nissi Ekpott, and Lauri Elliott are the lead facilitators for the African New Economy Workgroup (ANEW). The purpose of ANEW is to catalyze and accelerate economic opportunity and development in Africa and the diaspora that is open, inclusive, and benefits all by approaching our social/informal/business networks and global value chains as a single economy.

While God is the source of all and the Christian community our brotherhood, ANEW is an open organism welcoming all who can “connect” with its vision and abide by its ethical framework to release the tapped wealth in Africa to its people and through its people bring wealth to the world.

ANEW’s Key Message is “Exploring, embracing, engaging, and expanding to alternative markets in and through Africa to create exponential opportunities for growing sustainable business and fostering and maximizing benefits to all key stakeholders.”

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Copyright 2012 Afribiz.info

Post Published: 17 February 2012
Author: Editorial Staff
Found in section: Press Releases

Article source: http://www.afribiz.info/content/book-creating-wealth-by-harnessing-opportunities-in-africa-to-launch-in-africa-press-release

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Gresham Partners, a Chicago-based independent wealth management firm, has named two new principals.

Like what you see? Click here to sign up for Financial Planning’s daily newsletter to get the latest on advisor market trends, investment management, retirement planning, practice management, technology, compliance and new product development.

Both new principals are moving from existing roles within the firm. Joe Simpson has been the firm’s senior investment analyst since 2005, and David Colton joined the firm’s client service team in 2009.

“Joe’s contributions to the development of Gresham’s investment platform convey the level of excellence our clients and team expect,” according to Gresham’s president and CIO Ted Neild. Prior to joining Gresham, Simpson was a vice president in the private banking and investment group at Merrill Lynch.

Meanwhile, Colton “came to Gresham with excellent qualifications and a commitment to furthering Gresham’s success,” according to the firm’s chairman and founder Ben Beavers. “He is an excellent fit with our firm’s culture, and we are pleased to recognize him as a leader in our organization.”

Before joining Gresham, Colton was a partner and co-head of the fiduciary tax practice at MFA, a New England CPA firm.

Gresham Partners, founded in 1997, is a wealth management firm that serves families with investable assets of at least $25 million. The firm has nearly $3 billion under management.

Danielle Reed writes for Financial Planning.

Article source: http://www.financial-planning.com/news/gresham-partners-wealth-management-new-principals-simpson-colton-2677426-1.html

RBC Wealth Management, part of Royal Bank of Canada (RY on TSX and NYSE), and the sixth largest wealth manager in the world, has been recognized as providing the best private banking services in the Caribbean, according to Euromoney, a global banking publication.

This is the third year in a row that RBC Wealth Management – which serves high net worth and ultra high net worth clients in The Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Barbados – has ranked top in the region overall. In addition, RBC Wealth Management was also identified as the best among its peers in the region in categories including relationship management, equity portfolio management and fixed income portfolio management.

First published in 2004, the Euromoney Private Banking and Wealth Management Survey is regarded as one of the leading benchmarks for the global wealth management industry. Survey results are based primarily on a peer ranking methodology.

RBC Wealth Management’s operations in the Caribbean provide a complete range of wealth management services accessed by the global network of offices. In recent months the business has made a number of senior hires, including the appointment of Jeremy Proffitt as a Wealth Manager based in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Deanna Bidwell, Head of Caribbean, RBC Wealth Management, commented, “This reflects the hard work that our Caribbean teams put in day-in, day-out to better serve our clients. We really value this recognition of our performance by our peers in the industry and look forward to building on this success, in particular following a number of strategic hires that we have made in the last year.”

In addition to the success in the Caribbean, RBC Wealth Management was recognized as having the “Best Private Banking Services Overall” in Canada for the fifth consecutive year.

“We are extremely pleased to see RBC Wealth Management recognized for its excellence in solutions and service, both in Canada and abroad and particularly for our strength in trust services,” said George Lewis, group head of RBC Wealth Management.

“As the sixth largest wealth manager in the world, RBC Wealth Management continues to build a leadership position worldwide and attract and retain clients and great talent. This is a testament to the depth of our offering, our underlying strength and stability and the commitment of our people.”

RBC Wealth Management was recognized in July 2011 as the world’s sixth largest Global Wealth Manager in Scorpio Partnership’s Global Private Banking Benchmark 2011, an annual survey of the global wealth industry.

Article source: http://freeport.nassauguardian.net/business/302199376082054.php

Regarding the nation’s purpose, Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama couldn’t be further apart.

The Barack Obama budget document just released is not a budget. It is a work of literature. It is Barack Obama’s published apologia for a second presidential term, in which—as the budget and its tax proposals make clear—he will reset the historic balance in America between the public sector and the private sector. This reset will require large wealth transfers—from individuals and companies to the government, and from the government back to the people.

The Obama budget is described everywhere as a “political document,” but it is more than that. Mr. Obama hasn’t assembled these ideas just to get elected. This budget is a statement of belief. It is a road map of where he wants the country to go.

This being so, it behooves us to revisit the most controversial political event of the past two weeks—Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl commercial for the Chrysler car company.

This ad was widely viewed as an argument for a second Obama term. It is undoubtedly true that the pro-Obama admen who created the commercial embedded a pro-Obama spin. Asked about this afterward, Clint Eastwood said simply: “I certainly am not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama.”

No sensible person would try to disagree. When The Man With No Name looks at you dead on, as he did Super Bowl Sunday, and says it’s halftime in America and the country will come roaring back, you know the man speaking those words wasn’t talking about his embrace of the vision in Barack Obama’s 2013 budget.

In terms of the nation’s animating ethos, these two American icons could not be further apart. Clint Eastwood was talking about an America heading back up—”roaring” forward in the unpredictable, astonishing way it has since at least the days of the Wild West. The Obama budget is about an America whose path will be guided by the government far into the future. He is announcing that in his second term, the days of the private Wild West in America will come to a close.

There is no better way to discover this intent than in the president’s tax proposals. Taxes are a nation’s Rorschach test. In taxes you discover how a nation wants to be known to others. The burden of taxation may say that a nation more than anything wants to produce (say, Malaysia), or taxes may say that what a nation most wants is to be thought of as fair (Belgium).

What Mr. Obama wants, with the symbolic billionaire Warren Buffett propped at his side, is a wealth tax that redefines the U.S.

Mr. Obama wants to enact the Buffett Rule to ensure that every “millionaire” pays at least a 30% federal tax on some definition of income. He would raise taxes on married couples making $250,000. The tax on capital gains would rise to 30% from 15%, and he would return the estate tax to 45%.

No more certain sign exists that a nation has chosen to step off its historic upward path than the creation of wealth taxes. A nation imposes a wealth tax when it wakes up one day to conclude that it has become embarrassed, rather than proud of, its wealth, which is to say, its national success.

We are not talking here about the vast wealth that closed, crony economies direct toward a small plutocracy and no one else, though this rigged scam seems to be Barack Obama’s understanding of the modern American economy. The reality is that since its inception the U.S. has been an open, free economy that let wealth, including vast wealth, flow to dreamers, geeks and college dropouts whose unpredictable success multiplied into greater wealth for others.

Henry Ford’s automated car-assembly line spawned a galaxy of parts factories filled with workers. Apple’s little machines brought forth a universe of devices and applications.

The timing of such productive explosions is mysterious. The Obama wealth tax will smother and stifle this mysterious force.

France has the world’s most famous wealth tax. They call it “the solidarity tax,” which is the Gallic equivalent of the Obama “fair share.”

Today France is famous for the flight of its productive citizens to other countries. Spain abolished its wealth tax, but then-Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a Socialist, re-imposed it last September. What these countries, and much of Europe, have in common are high rates of youth unemployment.

Youth unemployment is the disturbing symptom of an economy no longer dynamic or “young” in the sense of creating new wealth to replace old wealth. The United States lately has also developed relatively high youth unemployment, which suggests the problem here isn’t fairness, but fatigue.

The Obama budget says one reason for its wealth taxes is to provide sufficient revenue to protect “the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs.” He does the investing, and the economy grows.

The Obama budget is about national attitude. Before this presidency, the national attitude was indeed caught in the snarling, disgusted, refuse-to-lose tone of Clint Eastwood’s voice in that commercial. The new national attitude on offer is caught in the Obama voice: resentful, moody, looking for someone else to blame and then punish.

An American wealth tax will make us wimpy and whiny. That won’t be halftime. It will be the final whistle.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

Article source: http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=58669