Train Wreck - 2013

So comes another year.  They just seem to go by faster and faster.  This one is going to be a challenge.  I have never been one to sit by and let life happen to me.  I have always tried to be pro-active and influence events.  Sometimes it's easier to stop the train wreck than try to clean up after it.  But the election in November has taken that choice from me and those like me.  As Jean Paul Sartre so aptly said: "Les Jeux Sont Faits" (The Dice are Cast).

All that's left is the waiting as the nation barrels down the track to an uncertain, debt laden future.  I have always had faith in the wisdom of the American Electorate.  This time I am not so sure.  In an age of unlimited information, the public seemed to have its head in the sand this time around.   The only question is how bad things will have to get before folks come to their senses, or has there been a seed change in the American way of thinking and all is lost?

I was with a group of folks last night who think like me.  We had a gathering at The Youngstown Club in downtown Youngstown.  New Year's Eve marks the closing of this 80 something year old institution that was originally made up of the local industrial barons.  It was a male centric private club that has had a long history of being...let's just say...less than open.  It was famous for employing only African Americans for its wait staff.  In a city of ethnicity, it was mostly White Anglo Saxon Protestant.  As time went on, the barriers came down.  As the steel mills closed, so did the ethnic and gender discrimination as the doors had to open for it to survive. 

It valiantly tried, but in the end the crisp white table cloths and beautiful surroundings just couldn't cut it in the modern age.   Private clubs were passe.  Couple that with four years of vilifying those who would join such an organization, the hateful 1%....or 20%...it finally had to close its doors.  God forbid those who were successful enjoying the fruits of their labor.  Afterall, they didn't build that. The villification in the VIndicator comment section was disturbing.  How much hate has been fostered in this country?

So now America is facing increased taxes that will effect everybody notwithstanding the rhetoric that surrounds the fiscal cliff.   Increased costs are going to touch everyone in one form or another.  Hidden taxes are everywhere.  Inflation is rearing its ugly head nothwithstanding what government officials are telling you.  They are lying. 

Regulations are flying out of Washington strangling growth like water over Niagara Falls.  I have personally experienced two instances of what these regulations can do to business and I can tell you it is not pretty.  It is downright scary.  I am blessed with a law degree and forty years experience which helps me navigate some of these artificial insane roadblocks.  The average guy doesn't stand a chance.

And in the background is the Affordable Care Act that will make any problems resulting from going over the fiscal cliff, or not, look like a walk in the park.  Therein lies the anchor around America's future.  It will strangle the future.  The more stories I hear, the more pessimistic I become.  Put together enough anecdotal stories and pretty soon you have the truth.

As I left the Youngstown Club the other night, and said goodbye to a place where in my earlier years I sat on the Board of Directors, I felt like I was saying goodbye to the America I knew a long time ago with the values that my parent instilled in me as a child.  Hard work, perseverance, responsibility, the importance of the individual, freedom, the sanctity of life have been replaced with Obama is giving me a phone.  No ma'am, Obama did not give you a phone. I and the other hardworking taxpaying Americans gave you a phone.  And I thank you not to shove it in our face. 

And if things keep going the way they are, pretty soon there won't be too many people left willing to work to give you another one.  It won't be worth the effort.  We are all aboard the coming train wreck.

Musings on the Fiscal Cliff

The fiscal cliff is looming in front of us getting ever so closer. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Coupled with the upcoming “Affordable” Health Care Act taxes the country is in for a rocky ride. There is plenty of blame to go around…but most of it lies with the American press which for all intents and purposes is more interested in celebrity than facts. In my entire lifetime I don’t ever remember the body politic being so uninformed, especially in an era in which we are being crushed with available information.

This year’s fiscal cliff is the result of bad leadership by the Republican House this past spring. Barack Obama wanted massive tax hikes on the “wealthy” and John Boehner wanted badly needed spending cuts. The debate centered on raising the debt ceiling, and what came out of the fiasco was a debt ceiling increase, a national credit rating reduction, with an agreement that if no tax/spending plan could be reached by January 1, 2013, the Bush tax cuts in their entirety would be repealed and massive spending cuts would be implemented mostly centered on Defense.

What Boehner failed to realize then and is again failing to realize, is Barack Obama is a progressive ideologue who has NEVER compromised once in his life. To a person like Barack Obama, the fiscal cliff is a wet dream. It contains everything the progressive liberal agenda demands….high taxes on everybody and massive defense cuts. Going over the cliff is viewed as a good thing, and if there is a little pain in the process, so be it. Obama doesn’t have to run for re-election and thus there are no consequences.

While the press has focused on the class warfare and folks paying their fair share (notwithstanding 48% of working Americans pay NO federal income tax), Obama has offered NOTHING in return. Oh sure, he has offered spending “cuts”, most of which are found in ending wars or pushing the desired expenditure out of the budget of a year or two. The press doesn’t care. I have not seen one budget analysis outside of the business channels. Pushing the can down the road one more time doesn’t solve the mounting problems. The President has NEVER negotiated seriously on any fiscal issue.  He has not produced a budget during his entire presidency.

Speaker Boehner should have played it smart. After the election he should have said that elections have consequences. He should have said that the House of Representatives would agree with anything Obama wanted to do. Send the bill over and we will pass it. Obama and his progressive cohorts would own it entirely. Obama would be on the spot. He would actually have to do something. Then Boehner and the Republicans would retreat to prepare to pick up the pieces, and the drooling press would learn a very hard lesson.

Lack of critical reporting on an incumbent President also has consequences. By failing to inform the public about the nature of the financial crisis the country is facing, these smarmy reporters have done a major disservice to all of us. At the end of the day, just like in your household, unlimited borrowing and spending leads to bankruptcy. Sooner or later it’s going to hit the fan, and it will be the poor and middle class that ends up paying the bill.

As these fiscal shocks hit the economy, rising interest rates, rising inflation and high unemployment are inevitable. In the short run, given the poor performance of John Boehner and the rabid press, the Republicans will take the hit. But four years from now, it will be Barack Obama’s presidency that will ultimately be blamed. Even the fawning press will not be able protect what looks to be a dreary legacy.

The Limits of our Democracy

Has America reached the tipping point? Alexis de Tocqueville was French political thinker who traveled America in the early 1800’s. His treatise Democracy in America is a two volume masterpiece in which he states with impeccable clarity the very issues this country is facing today. Observing problems of slavery in Jacksonian America, he concluded that equality is an unstoppable force. He also warned that equality is its own worst enemy.

Tocqueville said there are two kinds of equality. He wrote:

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” And this:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” And this:

"But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom". Is that what is happening in America today? Trading equality of opportunity, freedom, for equality of outcome, socialism?

America was not founded as a Democracy. It was founded as a Republic. There is a difference. In a true democracy, all people vote on all topics…and the majority rules end of discussion. In modern day America, every American would vote on every issue by remote control!! In a Republic, people elect representatives to vote for them. We rely to a good degree on their wisdom. In nascent America, we didn’t vote for President. The Electoral College is the remnant of a system in which the President was elected by elected officials of each state. Voting citizens were defined as white male landowners…translated….only those who had a stake in the economic game could vote. Let’s face it, these guys didn’t trust the masses and feared the mob.

As Tocqueville traveled America in the 1830’s he watched the contradictions play out. He realized that as America industrialized the system as outlined by the founding fathers in conjunction with the realities of life would somehow have to reconcile. He noted that George Washington signed the Naturalization Act of 1790 prohibiting people of color from becoming citizens. He predicted that slavery would end, but there would be great difficulty in assimilating blacks into society as a whole for generations. Tocqueville was adept in pointing out the weak spots in our ideals and our system. He was able to point out with specificity the limits of Democracy, and imply that it would have an ignoble end.

Of course he wasn’t the first to say that. Ben Franklin said:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Perhaps America should re-examine these great thinkers as we contemplate the limits of our Democracy.  In modern America, are any of us "entitled" to either liberty or safety?

America on the Brink

America is on the brink. It is becoming clearer that each day the precipice is getting closer. Americans are blissfully ignoring the warning signs which are everywhere. It’s not just the fiscal cliff as is popularly described by media pundits. The canyon we are approaching is much deeper and onerous than anyone understands. Sooner or later the credit card has to be paid.

Figures released today show that Barack Obama has incurred more debt than all of the other American presidents combined.  The trillion dollar figures are staggering. And he wants to spend MORE!!! The American people are looking the other way, distracted by everything but what counts. Danger is knocking on the door. Americans and the press are fiddling while Rome burns.

What part of $17 trillion in debt doesn’t America understand? All of it!! This is not a joke.  It will go away. It will work itself out.The debt to GDP ratio is at the tipping point. We are rapidly becoming Greece and anyone that feigns to point out the danger is destroyed by a rabid press blinded by a messianic President. Here is the dirty secret. You don’t have to be smart to spend money. This president has always been on the receiving end of government money…never on the paying end. To him, America is a bottomless well of milk and honey; and those that generate the milk and honey are the enemy.  That is not a good combination.

Sooner or later the debt is going to have to be repaid. His regulation nation and ideologically driven tax policy rooted in nothing substantive will prevent the nation from “growing” out of the debt. Not this time. Paul Krugman, Obama’s economic guru, says worrying about the debt is pointless. The debt is irrelevant. The debt doesn’t matter. Here is a guy that has won all sorts of prizes for excellence in economics…and his reasoning behind his statements? The government can print the money to pay the debt off.

Mr. Krugman is right. Print the money to pay the debt you don’t have to worry about taxes...just hyper-inflation which is the cruelest tax of all. You can keep your money. It just won't be worth anything.

While Obama is worried about taxes paid by the top 2% of taxpayers in an ideological tug of war, the amount of money he would collect wouldn’t pay the national debt for more than a week. What do you do with the other 358 days a year? And that doesn’t even touch the issue of Obamacare. The economic consequences of Obama’s utopian dream are enough to sink the economy.  While it was passed under the guise of saving the country a trillion dollars, new studies released this past week are now showing it will cost the country an additional $12 trillion. Where is that supposed to come from?

The most important question: why is Obama doing this? His economic advisers have deserted him for all intents and purposes. The few that are left are almost laughable. Obama has bamboozled the public into thinking that entire economy is in trouble because of rich Republicans. And he keeps spending and spending and spending and spending some more. Today he called the MSNBC progressive commentators to the White House today to discuss tax policy.  He called in left wing media pundits...Rachel Madow leading the pack...to discuss tax policy. That's who is giving him advice. 

Look into Obama’s eyes and you will see why he doing this. Look into his eyes when he makes one of his few public appearances for interviews or questions and you will see something you won’t like. He is not a nice man. He is not a good man. He is a manipulator driven by an ideology of hate and revenge. That is what he said in the few candid moments of his campaign. His motives are out there in full view for America to see.

We will wake up sooner or later.  I hope it's not too late.