A Reruen to Normalcy - The Left's Waterloo

Isn’t it interesting that midst the economic malaise in which the country finds itself, the stock market is going up? That is not necessarily unusual. Unemployment is a lagging indicator, which means that it is backward looking reflecting what has already happened. The stock market is a leading indicator reflecting what is anticipated to happen. If the market anticipates things are going to get better, the market will go up.

Part of an anticipated upturn involves decreased inventories. When things get bad, stores and manufacturers don’t buy new inventory choosing instead use whatever is on hand. When that is depleted, the inventory rebuild primes the pump, so to speak, and one there is an upturn in economic activity. The economy, in effect, reseeds itself. But something more fundamental has happened giving the market a boost way beyond the current economic fundamentals, which quite frankly, suck.

Markets hate uncertainty. In order for business and markets to thrive, the players have to know the rules. This past fall, we experienced a severe credit freeze which had the possibility of collapsing the entire world economy. It was scary. I don’t think any words can describe the seriousness of what happened. President Bush, followed by President Obama, reacted. They threw everything at the problem but the kitchen sink, and something worked. Credit markets are beginning to function again.

Unfortunately, the crisis hit in the middle of the presidential election. Center-right America shifted to the left, and elected a Democratic House and Senate, and a very personable, confident, and extremely radical left wing president. President Obama, not one to waste a crisis, moved to implement a suppressed far left agenda while wrapped in conservative lingo. In his short time in office, he nationalized the largest automobile producer in the United States. He took over the largest insurance company. He took over the largest bank. He formed a shadow government outside of the checks and balances of Congress by the appointment of so-called “czars” to handle everything from foreign policy to food additives. He increased the White legal staff by 25% in his rush to move power from Congress to the Executive branch of government. He threw out the rules of bankruptcy, and began to replace executives and boards of directors of American corporations. He quadrupled the national deficit, and his debt projections have reached a point where our GDP cannot begin to repay the amount of money owed in any meaningful way.

Then he made the biggest attempted power grab in United States history by attempting to take over the health and energy sectors of the economy. This would give the government unprecedented intrusive power over the daily lives of Americans. Under the guise of wellness programs, it would dictate what you can eat and how much exercise you have to do. Under the guise of global warming, it would set the temperature in your house. It would monitor where you go, and how much you drive. And in the name of efficient health care, it would do cost-benefit analysis to determine just how much medicine and what treatments you are entitled to. The net result would be a decrease in care overall, but especially in the area of elder care, where when you reach the age of 75, you may be deemed to old for that hip replacement….and that new cancer drug that has just been developed…you can’t have it because you are over 80. These are Orwellian changes in our way of life, and our expectations.

Reality has finally caught up to Mr. Obama. Even a fawning press couldn’t hide the truth behind what Obama was trying to accomplish. A very brave soul in the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office blew the whistle on the proposed health care “reform”, and spelled out the costs and how it works. The "ram it through" approach with no details and no explanation has been stopped, and maybe now we will get a legitimate debate as to how to handle the problems for a true and legitimate health care reform bill as opposed to a takeover and control bill.

In energy, Cap and Trade passed the House by one vote with eight Republicans voting for it. Not great in an overrwhelmingly Democrat Congress. The opposition continues to line up as it becomes clear that Cap and Trade means Americans pay while China, Brazil, Mexico, and India continue to spew carbon emissions. It will not pass the Senate, as constituents ask what company in its right mind would locate a factory here with this stuff on the books.

What does that have to do with a rising stock market? Business senses that the radical left has been stopped in its tracks by reality and an election in 2010. While the spending got through, business is sensing that the two main bills that would have decimated the American economy for the next 50 years are, if not dead in the water, sinking fast. Senator DeMint may have been almost right. Maybe Obama hasn't met his Waterloo, but I think America has reached the limit with left wing manipulation, lies, and policies.The rules are once more returning to normalcy.