The President Who Never Was

What strikes me about this president is how unpresidential he can be. We all have expectations of what the chief executive should be; Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush come to mind. A leader who molds the executive branch by sheer force of will and integrity. I don't see that here.

Some of you may wonder what a “Pogue” is. There are several definitions, but I like the military one: Personnel Other Than Grunt. Someone who is not a leader, a support person. As in “I asked supply for 5.56 ammo for the squad, but some F*ing pogue sent .308!” Not a leader of men. A bungler with the minus touch.

This lack of leadership is due to the substance of this man. It's obvious to most that without being breast-fed by his teleprompter, he would be lost and off-script. That does not describe any of the leaders I've worked for in the past, individuals who could speak convincingly from the heart at the drop of a hat.

It's the foundation of his beliefs. His view is that America, as founded, was an exploitative capitalist playground that crushed the poor underneath. A capitalist tyranny in desperate need of a socialist messiah - a Robin Hood who would steal from the rich using the IRS and redistribute to poor. In his mind he may have told himself, I could be that man. Lord, send me!

Est-il faible?

As Obama was glad-handing the elite during a European swaree this year, French President Sarcozy turned and said, "Est-il faible?" which means, Is he weak? Perhaps properly translated, Is he a wimp? What do you think other world leaders think of this man? Countries often go to war not due to strength, but due to weakness.

I'm not going to touch upon any "birther" arguments except to say that Obama's lawyers have expended over $1,700,000 fighting the birth certificate issue. What is more important is his adherence to the Constitution. I have seen nothing since he took the Oath that shows he has any respect for the bill of rights or of checks and balances. Some would assert that he is a domestic enemy of the Constitution. Many of his Czars most certainly are. They are the ones who write for his teleprompter.

As we approach the end of his first year in office, let's take a look at the issues he has faced:

- The economy (Obamavilles springing up all around)
- Climate change (talk about the biggest fraud of the last 100 years!)
- Handling the H1N1 "plague" (my county just ran out of body bags... just kidding)
- Fixing "health care" (was it really broken or just over-regulated?)
- Signing a Hate Crimes bill (what part of the 1st Amendment don't you understand?)
- Providing for our fight in Afghanistan (McCrystal cooling his heels for months)

And so it is. The president who never was, and a superpower without a real leader.

- Hugh Farnham

Bushanomics

** Unhinged DeviledEgg Rant Alert! **

The man who destroyed capitalism in order to save it announced the launch of The George Bush Center for Big Government and Big Business: 

Former President George W. Bush, outlining plans for a new public policy institute, on Thursday said America must fight the temptation to allow the federal government to take control of the private sector, declaring that too much government intervention will squelch economic recovery and expansion.

This is the man who authorized the largest transfer ever of taxpayer funds from the US Treasury to the pockets of Wall Street banksters and corrupt corporate crybabies disguised as capitalists.

"As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control. History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much,"

This is the man who presided over more government growth than Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev combined!

Folks, George Bush is a great guy, buuuut...
... He's not the figure 21st century conservatives should rally 'round.  He has no credibility on free market capitalism or small government.  The role of government when he was in office was to roll over everything in its path.  He presided over eight years of private sector-big business-big government orgies that brought us to where we are now.  

Worst of all, he burdened us with TSA, Thousands Standing Around.  That alone is an impeachable offense in my book!

It pains me to say this.  Silverfiddle begged me not to say it.  He was in the military during his administration, and he says it literally felt like it was the military, President Bush, and good-hearted Americans against the world.  

God bless President Bush, but he's a relic of the past.  Trying to defend his crony capitalism and big government policies is a quagmire all good conservatives should avoid.

WashTimes - Bush Center for Big Government and Big Business

Bureaucratic Auto-Stimulation

President Obama and the National Public Radio crowd are "surprised" at the increasing unemployment numbers

Morning Edition, July 3, 2009 · The surprising loss of 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, is fueling Republican criticism of the Obama administration's stimulus program. After the numbers were announced Thursday, President Obama called the huge job losses sobering. The continuing fallout in the labor market is causing problems in the housing sector, and vice versa.

Are they historically ignorant? This stimulus money has only stimulated more government bureaucracy--it hasn't produced anything. Worse; it is a gross misallocation of capital that the private sector could have used in a productive way that really would have created jobs by now.

How to Stimulate the Economy

* Drill Here, Drill Now, Drill Everywhere
* Commit to clean coal for the next 20 years
* Continue to encourage development of green technology, but stop stupidly shoveling government money at it--it's just not there yet
* Build 50 nuclear power plant
* Build 20 new Navy ships
* Build 100 new Military planes
* Pay private contractors to fix the nation's highways, bridges, and other infrastructure--Don't funnel the money through 14 bureaucracies to do it

Hard Times Mean Back To Basics For Some

I remember my Great Granny Jackson saying once that things started getting worse in this country when people stopped having chickens in their yard. I think that was her simple, countrified way of saying the country was over-leveraged and people had forgotten how to be frugal.

This article from the Kansas City Star caused me to recall her words:

Across the country and the metropolitan area, people are joining the national urban chicken movement, sometimes turning outlaw to raise the birds.

The movement started with the rationale that raising chickens fits in with efforts toward local and pure foods, supporters say, and the eggs are fresh and flavorful. The animals also are entertaining pets, many say.

KC Star - Urban Chicken Movement

Government Bubble

The end of the Clinton era saw the bursting of the dot com bubble. Rampant speculation had driven tech stock prices to unsustainable levels, and what went up came crashing back down.

We just witnessed the housing bubble's big bang, with resulting downsizing of irresponsible lifestyles. There is talk of bulldozing entire vacant neighborhoods in some failed cities like Detroit.

Unfortunately, government gamblers who are incapable of learning anything continue to pump hot air into the increasingly unstable big government bubble. California voters repudiated their politicians, and now no one knows what to do, since slashing spending doesn't come naturally to a political candy man.

President Obama, fresh from blowing $4,000,000,000,000, brazenly says we are borrowing too much money from China, we're broke, and the irresponsible spending must stop. Oh, and he also wants to fund windmills and free health care for everybody.

Paul Krugman can always be relied upon for liberal doses of economic advice.

Like practically all liberals, he stubbornly pins California's fiscal disaster to proposition 13, the conservative ballot measure that capped property taxes. Krugman goes a step further, predicting the same disaster for the US for the same reason: Those angry, stingy conservatives are blocking "responsible" tax increases that would pay for all this spending.

It's always too little taxation; never too much spending.

We all want something for nothing and the politicians are too cowardly to tell us no, so we end up with more government than we can afford.

China and the US are in a Mexican standoff: We can't stop irresponsible borrowing, they can't stop irresponsible lending, and the negative synergy has us on a mutual downward spiral.

Why doesn't it occur to anyone to downsize our overleveraged government?

NYT - Krugman

All That Glitters is not Gold

The woes of New York, Michigan and California are familiar to us now. New York has regulated and taxed itself into oblivion, Michigan's workers have priced themselves out of the global market, and California's progressive wizards have turned its gold into lead.

Only California liberalism could produce a situation where there is a surplus of empty houses while people live in tent cities. But there's trouble in the sun belt as well. Nicole Gelinas writes in the City Journal:

But during the boom times, elected officials in Arizona, Florida, and Nevada took a page out of the old states’ playbook, driving up spending at an unsustainable pace. Now that the growth of the low-tax states has hit a wall, shattering revenues, they face a tough choice: they can raise taxes to fund permanently higher costs, or they can aggressively cut spending.

This is happening in other sunbelt states as well. They are not in as deep as Michigan and California, so these states still control their own destiny, but the author is not optimistic.

But the low-tax, low-services culture is up against a potent force: the inexorable mathematics of budgets that take on a life of their own once they’ve passed the point of no return. If the way that Arizona, Florida, and Nevada are confronting the current crisis is any guide, these states will continue to grow—but they will also grow a little bit more like us.

Can we learn from the failed liberal experiments of Michigan, California and New York? Or are we doomed to replicate them in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada?

Merctus.org - Freedom Study
CJ - Malanga
CJ - Gelinas

Uncertainty Causes Instability

Government tinkering creates uncertainty, which in turn causes market instability. We saw it in the 1930's and we see it today

Louis R. Woodhill explains how government's failure to maintain the dollar's value has contributed to our present financial panic:

Capitalism and the free market can only do their job if the government supplies constant, reliable units of measure. This is why Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States says: “The Congress shall have Power…To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. The Framers seemed to understand that the dollar is a unit of measure, just like the foot, the pound, and the second.

In April, 2001, the price of gold was $255/oz. In March, 2008, it peaked at $1011/oz. The dollar, which is our unit of market value, had lost about 75% of its real value in seven years. (Today the gold price is around $950/oz.)

What does the free market do in the face of an unstable unit of measure? It tries to cope.

The classic way for a private entity to protect itself from inflation is to buy real assets with borrowed money. This is what drove the recent housing and commodities booms. For a long time, it made perfect economic sense to build houses (real assets) at a frantic pace and finance them with borrowed money. Between at least 2004 and 2007, anyone who didn’t borrow to buy real assets was a sucker—they were allowing themselves to be victimized by inflation while others profited from it.

Bill Frezza explains how capricious government standards fosters uncertainty, turning a recession into a depression:

Knowing the odds and payouts, as well as your own preference for a jackpot over pocket change, would you wager $5 on twenty-seven red at the roulette table? Enough people do to support a multi-billion dollar industry. OK, do you think anyone would play if the house was allowed to change the odds and payouts as well as any other rules of the game after each bet is placed?

That is the difference between risk and uncertainty.

Red and Blue tribal pundits agree that economic recovery can only occur if private capital returns to the market. That’s swell, at least they agree on something. So why is our brain trust in Washington doing every conceivable thing to maximize uncertainty, which only keeps us hiding in our caves hoarding gold?

Frezza has a point. Uncertainty is the reason why developing markets are starved for capital, forcing the third-world to entice investors with high returns: It is a dangerous place to invest. Capricious governments, crooked politicians and rotten legal systems chase capital to the stable markets of Europe, North America and developed parts of Asia.

Government policy schizophrenia has scared investors away. We're all sitting on our money because we don't know what will happen next. Frezza has a solution:

Do you want to get the country moving again instead of wallowing? Then consider this proposal, similar in spirit to the decision to declare a date-certain for our military withdrawal from Iraq.

Give us a date-certain when the Congressional circus and its media handmaidens will turn off the uncertainty machine so we can get back to work under whatever set of rules, subsidies, taxes, bailouts, and regulations they choose to saddle us with. Then freeze the plan and shut up.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/03/sorry_but_capitalism_did_not_f.html
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/03/how_to_turn_a_recession_into_a.html

Bad News: Americans Are Acting Responsibly

This Forbes article, like all financial articles, is singing the blues about those suddenly thrifty Americans. Without an increase in spending, the economy won't recover.

American consumers had been an engine global economic growth for much of the past two decades. For the slowdown that began with the U.S. subprime crisis -- itself an emblem of the American consumer culture -- to end, something will have to pick up the slack. A resumption of the U.S. retail buying binge seems not to be it.

Either Americans will have to revert to their careless spending habits or other countries will have to pick up the slack. How twisted is that?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/07/nonfarm-payrolls-february-markets-economy-layoffs-obama.html?feed=rss_popstories

55% Of Americans Realize Press Is Full Of Crap

From Rasmussen Reports

Fifty-five percent (55%) of U.S. voters believe the media tries to make the economy seem worse that it is. That’s an increase from 46% in November.

The majority perception that the media isn't painting a straight picture of the economy matches similar Rasmussen Reports findings about global warming and political coverage. Earlier this month, 54% of voters said the news media makes global warming appear worse than it really is.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/55_say_media_tries_to_make_economy_seem_worse_than_it_is

Gold Rush

Gold should be part of every investor’s portfolio, as the guy on the radio keeps reminding us

I agree, but now is not the time to buy, when gold prices are at an all-time high, or by reasonably optimistic estimates, still over 1/2 to 3/4 of the way to the pinnacle. Regardless, it's all speculative: If the gold hawkers can stampede panicked buyers, you may realize some increase in value, but you would then need to sell at the top, because it's a greased rail down when the economy picks up. The precipitous fall of gold prices during the Reagan recovery taught us that.

It's confusing. Smart people disagree: Inflationdata.com reminds us, "Gold is not an inflation hedge, it is a crisis hedge." We're already in the throes of crisis, so it's too late for hedging. Donald Luskin at SmartMoney.com tells us that gold is still a smart buy. The Fed is printing an avalanche of money to stave off deflation, so the specter of resulting inflation will push gold even higher.

For those of you wanting to hoard the precious metal against the untimely event of societal collapse, consider the following.

… OK, so the US economy crashes and pandemonium ensues. How are you going to redeem your shares for the gold they represent? Your broker is face down in a pool of his own blood in some New York Skyscraper. It's bedlam. Phones don't work and even FedEx ain't delivering. Those gold shares are now worthless.

So let’s say you actually bought gold coin or bullion. How are you going to get it out of your safety deposit box, assuming for the moment it hasn't already been blown open by the Thunderdome gangs? You better have it buried or hidden away somewhere accessible. Hope you don't have to drive too far, Conoco probably suspends it's open 24 hour policy in the event of anarchy.

To continue the discussion, let's say you buried the gold, pirate style, in a chest or box in the back yard and are able to dig it up without anyone seeing you. How are you going to spend it? Where are you going to spend it? The neighborhood Safeway? No. It's been looted and is now a homeless hotel.

You will be carrying out ad-hoc transactions with scared people, predatory people… You should have invested in lead...

One scenario where buying gold makes sense

The dollar collapses or experiences a drastic devaluation, or the federal government freezes all personal funds held in public institutions and seizes some percentage before freeing funds again (Ecuador did that about 10 years ago). In that environment, assuming society holds together and the economy can make a comeback, buying gold now makes sense. Having your wealth in a personally-held stash of gold would be far superior to any stock, bond, paper dollar, or dollar denominated investment. You would come out the other side with your wealth intact.

But, what if the federal government made all post-collapse gold transactions illegal, forcing you to buy and sell through the government, at their prices?

Isn't it scary that we've reached the point where sane people can even contemplate such scenarios?

http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2008/03/03/you-are-about-to-make-a-bad-investment.aspx
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/12/31/gold-will-be-fine-in-2009.aspx
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gold_Inflation.asp
http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Economy/Nothing-Shines-Like-Gold/

Michael Steele -vs- Liberal Progagandists

Michael Steele wrote a beautiful critique of the liberal Democrats' porkulus bill in USA Today.

Of course, the comments forum was visited by the mushy headed thinkers who eat the Democrats's socialist propaganda and crap it out on the rest of us:

out there wrote: 21m ago

Like always Steele gets it wrong. The GOP gave away 1.3 trillion dollars in tax cuts under Bush most of it geared toward their rich friends. The end result is the current financial mess that we are in. It seems that they never will learn from their mistakes. For good measure the GOP is now trying to rewrite the history of the great depression of the 1930's in an effort to mask their mistakes of today. Sorry Steele but the GOP has never understood the American economy and never will. Tax cuts are not the answer. It is not possible to run this nation on a 1930's tax rate. What we need is jobs and the only way to make jobs is to spend money. We also need national health care which would go a long way towards helping out American bossiness. It's time to spend our taxes dollars on us instead of the massive spending on defense. It's time we learned to get along with the rest of the world and them with us- in other words GROW UP

Here is my response. Not surprisingly, out there, never responded back. These liberal graffiti artists spray their unintelligible blather and run like hell so the logic police won't nab them:

Out there: Please show the correlation and causation between tax cuts and economic failure. The answer is you can't. Cutting taxes and freeing the private sector has worked everywhere it has been tried. Government controlled economy has worked nowhere.

Your liberal propaganda sounds good but crumbles under scrutiny.

Government make-work jobs, like in the 30's, kept people from starving, which was a good thing, but it did not rebuild the economy. The economy did not recover until FDR loosened government control over everything and let the private sector do what it does best: Create real jobs and grow a real economy.

Our free market system works until Dems like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd get in bed with Fannie, Freddie, and the Wall Street banksters, exempting them from government regulation. Look it up: Wall street has given overwhelmingly to the Democrats over the last 8 years. Follow the money!

Our failure is a moral one, and the liberal democrats led the way into oblivion.

Who do you blame for wrecks on the interstate? President Eisenhower for implementing the interstate system? How about automobiles? Do you blame the interstate system itself, or do you blame those who don't follow the rules of the road?

Yes, it is time to grow up and stop believing everything you hear just because your guy said it.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/02/opposing-view-1.html

Oooh! It's oh so stimulating!

Stimulus: If I take my hammer and smash it down on your big toe, that's technically a stimulus. I provided an input that elicits a response, "your screaming and yanking your foot away". That in a nutshell is the problem with stimulus, it is not a positive or negative term, it is neutral, (If I tickle you, you laugh).

Economically speaking, the more appropriate term is "incentive". Government induces desired behavior by the offer of reward. For example, telephone companies may compete in the long distance market (the reward) if they allow competition from other companies within their own infrastructure (the desired effect).

The problem with incentives is that they sometime lead to undesirable results due to the subject behaving in an unexpected manner. CEO stock options were initiated as an "incentive" aimed at producing higher and better CEO productivity. The problem was, that as CEO's soon learned, one could induce higher stock prices (the desired effect) through bad business decisions, claim the reward, and bail before the bottom fell out. The long term result being stinking rich (and retired) CEOs, and shaky and unmanageable companies.

Let us take a theoretical example of "economic stimulus" through the use of government spending (admittedly the numbers are completely made up).

The US government implements a $1 Trillion dollar stimulus package along the lines of the old WPA. The project: The maintenance and upgrading of the federal interstate highway system, federal buildings, and the like. We will grant them the same effectiveness as the old WPA in creating 3.3 million jobs paying a "security wage" to the recipients at the going regional rate. We will also grant the same time period of the old WPA of 8 years (1935-1943).

So, the government creates 3.3 million jobs for an 8 year period. The question then becomes what happens when the money and jobs run out? The government through the use of expenditures can only provide economic support while expending funds. The system is not self-sustaining... the government produces an artificial market...withdraw the funding and the whole house of cards comes falling down. Without WWII... we would either still be running the WPA or long since bankrupt (or socialist). The WPA was only made unnecessary by the economic stimulus induced by the war.

If the stimulus undertaken by government simply 'artificially' creates the desired end-state (employment) we are no better off than we are now, in fact we will be worse off, as we will be forced to continue pumping money into the programs established. Government action must be focused on those areas that can produce long-term positive effects in the economy, anything else is just a hand-out.


Think about it.

We had a Merry Christmas

We scaled back on the gift buying this year and gave a little more to charity. We went to church and thanked God for all he has given us. We enjoyed family togetherness, ate good, watched Christmas videos, moved the wise men closer each evening, and sang carols around the Christmas tree. We had a merry and blessed Christmas.

I awoke on the 26th to see headlines announcing this was the worst "holiday season" ever.

How can the worst retail holiday season in years get worse? It can become the worst holiday season since anyone kept accurate records.

There have been signs for several weeks that e-commerce and store sales were falling at single digit rates. But, as each day passed, the industry hoped that discounts would lure shoppers back into stores for that one final spending spree.

Qando, in a blasphemous fit, went so far as to call it a Black Christmas.

But this year, after a moderate uptick in shopping activity boosted by steep promotions the Friday after Thanksgiving, shoppers closed their wallets and reopened them only cautiously, worried by job losses, a sinking stock market and a recession climbing into its second year.

This Christmas was not black, and it was not a failure. A savior has been born. No man can change that.

The failure was with the Happy Holidays, Winter Solstice, secular plastic shop till you drop celebration. That was a bust.

Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
-- Henri Frederic Amiel

Got Liberalism? Before The Crash

As we celebrate this Christmas looking into the abyss of total financial collapse, we need to recall how we got here. Yes, Demicans and Republicrats spent like crazy in pursuit of our votes, and we egged them on. Now we're $10 Trillion in the hole, $50 Trillion of you count all future liabilities.

But what crashed our economy? Democrats.
Led by Senator Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer and Congressman Barny "Frankenstein" Frank. Their unholy alliance with Fannie and Freddie caused this economic nightmare: Fannie and Freddie paid them campaign contributions while senators and congressment kept shoveling government money back at them while ignoring their ineptitude, mismanagement and outright fraud.

That, coupled with government coersion of financial institutions to drop prudent lending practices, is what pushed us over the edge.

Who warned of a crash and tried to stop it? Republicans.
Led by President "Compassionate Conservative" George Bush and Senator John "I'm too honorable to win" McCain. In a rare fit of conservatism, these two men tried to put the brakes on this unholy politico-financial-cluster-alliance, but were unsuccessful.

Here is a Fox News timeline on YouTube, courtesy of Proud To Be Canadian.



It is important we not forget how this happened. Every time some phoney baloney BDS sufferer opens his or her mouth about how George Bush wrecked the economy, we need to shove these facts back at them. They've got all the megaphones now, but that doesn't stop conservatives from speaking the truth.

FDR, Obama, & The Forgotten Man

I'm reading The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes. It is an especially useful book right now since it knocks down many myths of the Great Depression.

The 1929 crash was no different than previous panics, but government intervention made it worse. Hoover's tight-fisted monetary policy, tax hikes, and import tariffs turned a temporary dip into a full-blown depression. FDR's centrally-planned government interventions scared away private money and intimidated investors, prolonging the depression.

Perhaps our government should indeed be spending more money right now in a Keynesian effort to prime the pump. But that only goes so far, and the danger is that government money is stupid money: How does a bureaucrat spend a dollar so it best benefits the economy? How does government avoid competing with the private sector? Or favoring one company over another?

A well-regulated free market is much more efficient. And no, our current economy is neither well-regulated nor efficient: It is a rotten swiss cheese shot though with government intervention, and greedy rats slink through dark warrens carved out by politicians who use our constitution as a doormat. Government should set rules of fair play and then butt out, but there's too much money to be made engaging in mutual backscratching with unions and big business.

Another ignored lesson from 1929 is that raising taxes is a bad idea because it depresses private sector hiring. And government intervention in the free-market creates uncertainty that kills economic growth. Roosevelt didn't pull us out of the Great Depression; the private sector gearing up for World War II did. Roosevelt's policies can be rightly credited with keeping people from starving, but private enterprise rebuilt our economic engine.

George Santayana famously observed that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.

A witty unattributed riposte is: Those who do remember history are doomed to make new, more interesting mistakes.

Well, President-elect Obama's braintrust is all atwitter at the prospect of reliving the good old days, while relishing the opportunity to outdo FDR's ambitious projects.

The big ticket will be the public works spending. “We will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s,” Mr. Obama said.

He did not give any estimate of how much he would devote to that purpose, but when he met with the nation’s governors this week, they said the states had $136 billion worth of already-approved road, bridge and other projects ready to go as soon as funding became available. They estimated each billion dollars spent would create 40,000 jobs.

Providing some economic incentives for the private sector is a good thing, even in the environmental area. But watch out for pointy-headed bureaucrats who want to perform social experiments using our tax dollars:

“We won’t do it the old Washington way,” Mr. Obama said. “We won’t just throw money at the problem. We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve — by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.”

This is reassuring to a liberal or moderate ear, but to the conservative, free-market ear it is a clanging alarm bell. The new administration needs to promote job growth and stimulate the economy, but it must not repeat the interventionist, central-planning mistakes of the past.

It's up to us conservatives to know our history and get involved in this discussion. We can't just throw rocks. People are out of work and the economy is on the skids; extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Conservatives won't control this debate, but they need to stay in it to fight for free-market solutions. To do otherwise would be to helplessly watch nostalgic old-line Democrats usher in the 1930's all over again.

Parenting 2008

First it was bankers who know nothing about handling money. Now the spotlight is on parents who know nothing of parenting, courtesy of Breitbart:

The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children. The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

This quote from an Indiana woman, oops, it's a neutered new millennium male, sums up our parenting crisis:

"Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don't have the money," wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. "By bombarding them with advertisements ... you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can't afford the toys you promote."

What a boob. I tell my kids that every year. Try this: "Kids, mom and dad don't have the money to buy those presents you want, but Christmas is not about cashing in anyway."

How do these wimpy parents function in real life? How do they ask for a pay raise or tell a subordinate that their performance stinks? I'll bet the used car salesmen can spot these suckers coming a mile away.

Give that drunk another bootle of hooch!

So let me get this straight: It was a bad thing that the US savings rate was negative and that people were borrowing too much and spending money that they didn't have. This contributed to our current economic calamity.

So what's our government's solution? Offer consumers more credit so they can buy more stuff they can't afford!

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve's new $800 billion effort to combat the financial crisis is designed to make credit more accessible to shaken consumers who aren't sure they want more debt.

The new programs bring the estimated total government commitment to ease credit to about $8.5 trillion, with $3.17 trillion being used to date.

..."It's too early to tell whether the lending has increased or not,'' David McCormick, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. "We certainly expect that it will.''

Albert Einstein once said

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If that don't apply here I'll stick a needle in my eye.

Einstein also said:

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

Einstein was a genius. The Wall Street pirates and Washington hucksters grappling with this financial crisis just think they are.

Nouriel Roubini at Forbes is a smart man. He discusses solutions that are definitely not the same old thing, and they do involve a higher level of consciousness.

The U.S. economy is confronting a toxic mixture: deflation, a liquidity trap and debt deflation, as well as rising household and corporate defaults. Put plainly, the signs of a "stag-deflation"--a deadly combination of stagnation/recession and deflation--are now clear.

Our departure from reality and sound economic principles has landed us in a very scary place: Irresponsible borrowing has built a house of cards, and we need to egg on more irresponsible borrowing to keep the flimsy structure from collapsing on our heads. I think they call this a downward spiral.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ag3TJyGD73qk&refer=news

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/11/26/deflation-stagnation-liquidity-oped-cx_nr_1127roubini.html

Obama, Pelosi, Reid: Totalitarian Triangle

The Wall Street pirates have blown a hole in the side of the US Treasury and now Democratic party looters are swarming through the breach.

Confident of an Obama victory, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid plan to call a special session of Congress right after the election. The socialist agenda just can't wait.

House Democrats have announced plans for an economic forum on Monday "to help Congress develop an economic recovery plan that focuses on creating jobs and strengthening our economy."

A plan to create jobs? Pray it doesn't turn out like their plan to create more homeowners. That Democratic scheme has nearly ruined us.

But wait... There's more! They want to implement the Obama Agenda:

The candidate has said previously he favors $25 billion to help states meet their own needs, another $25 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and $65 billion for tax rebates paid for by a windfall profits tax on oil.

So they are going to rain down taxpayer money on fiscally irresponsible liberal states like California and Michigan while sticking it to "Big Oil." What do you think the windfall profits tax on oil will do to the price of gasoline and home heating oil?

With Democratic control of the White House and Congress, we're on a greased rail to socialist hell. If every conservative would try to convince just one middle-of-the-road undecided voter...

Unvarnished Liberal Crap

Here's a great example of Unvarnished Liberal Crap, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: Working Without a Net, by Peter Gosselin. This good man bleeds his heart out for the American family who, despite historic prosperity, still must cope with *Gasp!* risk. My fiskers are out, so let's break it down.

Working Americans and their families arrived on the doorstep of the current economic crisis uniquely ill-equipped to cope with its consequences. Rather than having gained a financial protective coating during the period of growth that preceded it, working families up and down the income spectrum were actually nudged further out on an economic limb and therefore were primed for being picked off once problems emerged.

So "working Americans" decided to squander all their gains rather than save something back. Who's fault is that?

Even as our incomes went up, economic risks -- the costs of being laid off, of suffering a work-stopping illness or of a catastrophe like a house fire -- that were once largely borne on the broad shoulders of business and government were being shifted onto the backs of ordinary families, from the working poor to the reasonably rich.

When did "the broad shoulders of of business and government" ever bear the burden of house fires and work-stopping illnesses? This is a classic "straw man" argument: Set up a non-existent enemy and argue against it.

... following a rash of disasters ... insurers phased out guaranteed replacement cost policies in favor of "extended replacement cost" policies. ... It is up to you to figure out what it would cost to rebuild your home. And it is up to you to keep your policy current.

Theoretically, you could do this job. But the industry's own estimates show that more than half of American homeowners simply have too much else going on in their lives to keep tabs on changing building codes, the fluctuating price of plywood or what carpenters and plumbers are making in their neighborhoods.

This is typical liberal, big-government, nanny-state condescension. "Poor thing! You shouldn't be saddled with those decisions about your home insurance! You can't do it yourself, let big brother take care of it for you." This is asinine. I adjust my insurance policy annually, all by myself! All I do is see what new homes in the area are selling for, add in the value of my stuff inside it, and insure my house for that amount. No looking up building codes, pricing lumber... And I do it all without the government's help! Look mama, I'm a big boy!

Similar changes -- with similar shifts of economic risk from business and government to families -- have occurred in retirement, where the switch from traditional pensions to 401(k)s has left individuals largely on their own to provide for old age.

So? The stock market consistently outperforms social security. Period. If I die, my family gets the money in my 401K--they certainly won't get the money I paid in to social security. Also, I guess the author is unaware of the massive pension shortfalls big companies are facing, not to mention pension fraud that leaves people with NOTHING! I would much rather handle my own retirement, thank you.

Similar changes have occurred in the way people pay for college education, where rocketing costs and the declining availability of federal grants have meant that most families can no longer pay as they go to send their kids to school, but must borrow. That's left parents more financially exposed. And it's meant that after they graduate, most young people are saddled with debt and, in many cases, must make a beeline to the best-paying jobs to help defray the costs of college.

When was this magical golden era when a family could "pay as you go" for a kid's education? Another bogus argument. Go complain to the overpriced universities! Maybe congress could drag "Big Education" through televised hearings and demand to know why they are gouging the consumer? Nah, they only do that to the big oil meanies. Finally, despite Michelle Obama's whining, I can think of many fates worse than graduating college with a degree and having some debt to pay off.

Some argue that in the new, globally competitive economy, U.S. business and government simply cannot afford to provide the kinds of protections against financial peril that they used to. Perhaps not. But that doesn't mean that we should automatically shunt the job of bearing these dangers to families alone. And it most assuredly doesn't mean that we should pass along the task without letting people know they've just been assigned the job of bearing a big new load of risk.

This last statement is liberalism in a nutshell; and it's what gets liberals elected. If you drink yourself into a stupor, lose your job, and drive your family to ruin, Big Government should be there to catch you when you fall, with my tax dollars. Some calamity befalls you, big business and Uncle Sam should shoulder the burden. Kids in college? Government should pay for that, too. There was a time when families actually saved back money for emergencies and budgeted for future expenses like college.

Not anymore. We buy houses we can't afford and burn through our credit cards buying trendy goodies, all the while whining about how bad things are in this country. Things go south and we expect our fellow taxpayers to subsidize our irresponsibility. That's liberalism, served up by politicians looking for votes, aided and abetted by thousands of media propagandists who churn out crap like this LA Times article, and your fellow citizens are snarfing it down like hogs at the trough.

Are you voting this November?

Cherry Picking the Economy

The worst economy since the great depression…

Remember the constant bleating from the press and the anti-Bush crowd about how the Bush administration “cherry picked” intelligence? They allege that the president chose only those bits of information that fit his plans and ignored everything else.

Well, the press has been cherry picking economic news for years. How many news items have you seen featuring some town, family, or business that’s doing ok, despite everything? How often do you hear or read something that puts the housing “crisis” in perspective (it’s not a crisis). Falling prices mean those who previously could not afford a home now may be able to. How many articles have you seen comparing unemployment, wage growth or gas prices to those of Europe? (Hint: We’re the envy of the rest of the world) Hav

To answer my own question, we don’t hear any positive stories. The press trots out every hard case they can find: Children with rare, expensive diseases, people who lost their house because they couldn’t pay the mortgage that was 80% of their income, old people (who used to be reliable Republicans) who’ve have had some misfortune befall them.

This constant drumbeat affects the national psyche. People are in a sour mood. Gas and grocery prices are up and wages are not keeping pace. And the press throws gasoline on the fire with a constant torrent of negativity. And we eat it up. We have become a nation of whiners.

This despite the fact that, compared to our forbears, we are better educated, drive nicer cars, live in bigger homes, have more money, and generally enjoy more luxuries. The only thing we have less of is sacrifice.

There will always be a hard-luck story somewhere that the press can point to. It still won’t be as bad as the great depression.