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.

Dictatorship of the Minorities

Every day I read some group or company or organization is getting Federal aid. Today is no exception. In one article, I read that minority broadcasters have approached Timothy Geithner for a bailout. They claim that minority broadcasters are suffering more than most and are “almost an extinct species.” Of course, they will probably get it, and you shouldn’t be surprised.

In another article, I read that the government is once again considering assistance to those who are unable to make their mortgage payments. An Obama official was quoted as saying it was reasonable for the administration to consider measures of loan forbearance.

My question is, who is there for me? My wife and I get up every morning and go to work. We have worked hard through adverse circumstances when the legal profession was so crooked locally it effectively stopped me from practicing. The corruption crossed over into the education system where my wife was accused of stealing money, threatened with job retaliation if she didn’t talk her union into certain terms the school system wanted, and then was left hanging out to dry by both the school system and her union after an illegal reduction in force. No one was there for us, and my wife had paid union dues for 20 years.

Right now the government is there for blacks. The government is there for Hispanics. The government is there for gays. The government is there for terrorists. The government is there for Muslims. When has the government done anything for me? In a word, never!

Majority rule has been taken over by a Dictatorship of the Minorities. It is getting scary. Recently, in Akron, a group of black thugs attacked a white family and seriously hurt these folks. The shouted as they beat these people up that is “a black world now!” The Akron police are investigating that this might be a “hate crime.” Do ya think? The fact that they have to even ask the question is insulting to whites. Of course it is a hate crime.

Now Judge Sotomayor is being considered for the Supreme Court. Her opinion that a Latina woman could reach a better decision than a white male is racist and insulting. Yet certain members of Congress did everything during the hearings today but clean her feet. If a white lawyer said the same thing in reverse, his/her license would be revoked and face trumped up criminal charges.

Even illegal aliens make out better, with their kids getting in-state tuition to colleges while other Americans are shut out. And of course, let’s not forget the activist women, who said they didn’t want the money going to white, male construction jobs. It didn’t, and now unemployment is pushing 10%.

The government is going to learn a hard lesson. After Jimmy Carter, the press conjured up the angry white male…blue collar Democrats who voted for Reagan. Maybe the angry white male will make a comeback. You can only soak a certain segment of society to pay for all of the rest for so long before the end of the line is finally reached. That is when the real problem will rear its ugly head.

That Great Money Machine in the Sky

The economic news continues to be bad, and I am constantly amazed why government officials are so surprised. It’s very simple, until some normalcy returns into the country’s financial life, banks will be reluctant to lend, businesses will be reluctant to expand, entrepreneurs will be reluctant to take risks, and consumers will be reluctant to spend. The rule of the day, preserve what you got because you never when “they” will be coming to take it away from you.

For the economy to work, there have to be rules. People have to know what to expect. And the Obama administration has turned the rules upside down. A friend of mine said it best, it’s like everything is backwards. What concerns me the most is I am hearing this from places where I shouldn’t be hearing it, and from people who have rarely say anything at all political. They don’t understand what is going on, and they are afraid of what is going on. The contrarians among us will say that is a good sign. Don't bet the rent.

President Obama and his cohorts in Congress just don’t get it. There isn’t some big money machine in the sky that continually pours out its bounty on America. America’s wealth comes from Americans that work. And Americans won’t work if the government is going to take what they make away from them. The least scintilla of government abuse of power will cause these folks to pull back. We have more than a scintilla. If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times. If the government can takeover GM, what can they do to me? No matter what the motivation of the government, what has happened is inherently un-American, and the population is beginning to sense it.

That doesn’t even begin to tap into the growing fear of increased taxes, increased energy costs, increased inflation, and increased interest rates. All of these are legitimate fears.

A client of mine is the epitome of an entrepreneur. He and his family work in several separate but related businesses. They work 12 hours/day, 6 days/week in the most basic of American undertakings…buying and selling surplus merchandise. These guys know one thing, hard work. But the client said to me today “I just don’t get it. What is the government doing? These people work for us, or at least they used to, and I am deeply concerned.” And that pretty much sums it up.

Deeply concerned is an understatement. No one will do much of anything if they think the government is going to tax and spend us into the poorhouse. I don’t think that President Obama is a bad man. He is a creature of his upbringing and his experience. He attended private school growing up on scholarships. He attended undergraduate schools on scholarships. The attended law school on scholarships. Throughout it all, he was at the receiving end of racism while watching the benefits of privilege. When he finished his education, he went to work as a community organizer, which basically lobbied to take money from one group of people and give it to another.

Now, as President, he continues his redistributive ways. That is what he knows; all the while thinking the pot of money at the end of the industrial rainbow will never run out. Even his stimulus package is based on social fairness rather than projects that will generate hard jobs that use concrete and steel. They don’t need any more jobs for white construction workers. Nowhere is there any incentive for business start ups, business expansion, and job growth and creation.

Meanwhile, those of us down here in the real world are scratching to make a living, reluctant to take the chances that will make this country grow again, and wondering whether or not the government will ever realize that in order for that big money machine in the sky to work, it has to prime the pump with some incentive.

Those Green Green Shoots of Home...

A lot has been said and written in the business media about green shoots appearing in the economy. Translated: signs of life springing from the ruins. Well, maybe yes and maybe no. I hope they are right. I suspect they are wrong.

The stock market has been behaving, more or less. It is up from its March low approximately 30%. That’s great if you bought in March. On the other hand, if you bought a year ago, you are still a hurting puppy. The stock market always recovers before the economy. It did to a point, but has since leveled off. I think that is exactly what is going to happen in the economy. It will recover to a point, then level off.

Those hoping for a return of the boom boom days of Dow 14,000 may have to wait for a long time. That economy was driven by two things: 1) a rapid increase in productivity due to the computerization of our society; and 2) abnormally low interest rates implemented after 9/11, to which we and the Federal Reserve became addicted. The Fed increased the money supply and lowered rates, the government actually was running a surplus in 1999, and inflation was held in check by the rapid increase in productivity. Add to the mix an influx of cheaply made foreign goods and banking deregulation, it was goldilocks all the way.

Those days are long gone. The Fed has lowered interest rates again to almost zero, but corporate bond and mortgage interest rates have acted contra to the Fed’s wishes and have begun to move up. This is a result of the massive borrowing by the Obama administration. You see, government competes with business when borrowing money. If the Feds borrow all of the money, business is going to have to pay substantially higher rates to borrow whatever is left. It is the law of supply and demand.

Simultaneously, commodities and precious metals have begun to rise in price. This is not demand related, but rather related to anticipation of the coming inflation. Somehow, the government is going to have to pay back all of the money it has borrowed. It can do it two ways: it can increase taxes on business activity which will be stymied already by higher interest rates, or it can print money. Most likely, it will be some combination of the two. Either way, it spells bad news for us. Rising commodity prices in the face of no increased demand is a green shoot for inflation. Our currency has begun to be devalued.

Although the government reports that inflation is not a problem right now, and that in fact inflation is down, a trip to the grocery store will tell you the truth about what is going on. Things are going up in price, and rapidly. The inflation figures provided by the government heavily weigh the cost of housing, which right now is down and falling. The government figures need a good dose of reality.

Obama based pundits say the Federal Reserve has a handle on things, and this time it will be different. When you hear this time is different…run for the hills. IT IS NEVER DIFFERENT. This is not rocket science. It is the first day of Economics 101. Excessive government borrowing coupled with a massive increase in the money supply equals higher interest rates and inflation. I repeat, IT IS NEVER DIFFERENT.

The coup de grace killing the economy recovery would be Obama’s cap and trade bill. This bill would limit so called carbon emissions from everything we do…from raising cows to lawn mowers to heating our homes and making goods in our factories. China and India and Russia have refused to even consider similar measures, and China is the biggest carbon emissions country in the world.

Obama doesn’t care. His ideology requires he pound his fist on the phony concept of global warming. Here the rules are very simple. If a company can build a factory and worry about cap and trade, and build a factory in China and not worry about cap and trade, where do you think it will go?

This is disturbing stuff. I know there are green shoots. I just don’t know of what!!!

Mr. President: Stand up for Freedom!!

“But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

Barack Obama, June 4, 2009; Cairo University

Barack Obama, for once, got it right. This is about as clear a statement of American principles and values as the President has made since becoming President and during the entire Presidential campaign last year. He should go back and re-read them. As has become his habit, he talks a good game, but the ideals get lost in the actions. As I have said over and over again, don’t look at what he says. Look at what he does.

Anyone watching the tragedy in Iran this past week saw people dying in the street for what Obama says we, as humans, yearn for. The pictures didn’t come from news organizations, but rather You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter. Unfiltered, the face of revolution is terrifying as people risk everything to achieve freedom. I am not sure I would have the courage to do what these folks were doing. God bless them.

And where was our President? Parsing words! It was outrageous. In a clear effort to hedge his bets, Obama said that he didn’t want to appear to be meddling in Iranian internal affairs. He was afraid of raising the specter of 1953 when the CIA reinstalled the Shah as ruler of Iran. After all, he made sitting down with the Iranian government thugs a centerpiece of his campaign. Perhaps he will learn a lesson.

When Obama spoke those stirring words back on June 4 in his message to Islam, he offered an olive branch to our enemies in the Arab world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , the Iranian president, returned the olive branch by shoving it right up Obama’s posterior. Did Obama really think that Ahmadinejad would “bend to his will” along with the rest of the world as stated in Newsweek Magazine several weeks ago? Here’s a rule of politics: never believe your own press.

I never understood modern day liberals’ obsession with dictators: Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Ahmadinejad, and radical Islam generally with its oppression of women and gays along with torture and beheadings. Barack Obama’s tepid response to the Iranian uprising is in sync with this type of ideology that believes it is possible to reach some sort of accord and satisfaction with this people. It doesn’t work.

Mr. President! Stand up for freedom. Shout your words of June 4 back to Iran. Let those in the street fighting oppression know we support them. Let our ideals be known around the world. We are still that shining city on the hill the world looks towards to show the way of human dignity and liberty. Climb to the the mountaintop and stand with Martin Luther King for human rights, for human progress, for equality of the races and the sexes. We are America. There is no compromise with evil. We may be imperfect, but we continually strive for the ideals you so eloquently stated in Cairo.

That is the message the world yearns to hear. I say again, STAND UP FOR FREEDOM!!

For the Media, Time for the Jaws of Life

I wanted to write a column about bias in the mainstream media. I wanted it to be intelligent, and filled with thoughtful analysis. I wanted to be fair. I can’t. There is nothing to be fair about. NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN have their noses so far up Obama’s posterior, it would take the jaws of life to pull them out. And that, my friends, is a sad day for the country.

1) David Letterman’s comments about Willow and/or Bristol Palin were beyond the pale, and absolutely echoed his disdain for conservative women specifically and Republicans generally. It took him days to finally apologize for those crass and uncalled for comments. His apology didn’t ring true. Truth be told, he would tell that joke again in a minute if he thought he could get away with it.

2) Brian Williams “news report” from the White House last week was a joke unto itself. He bowed to the President, and made comments like people weep when they leave Obama's presence. Even Bill Moyers had a problem with this one.

3) Matt Lauer was downright hostile to Sarah Palin when he interviewed her on the Today Show relating to the Letterman flack. He was rude. He was arrogant. And he should be ashamed.

4) ABC is doing a one hour “townhall” meeting from the East Room of the White House next week featuring His Holiness Obama, and refusing to allow any Republicans to participate in the event. And of course, the ABC Evening News will be broadcast from there also. It will be a one hour infomercial for Obama’s policies with no response allowed. The Republican National Committee is lodging a protest with the appropriate agencies…big woo. ABC has righteously proclaimed it is doing nothing wrong. Even Susan Estrich, one of the most liberal commentators around has a problem with this, stating that ABC could be as fair as it wants...but this looks bad. People remember what the see rather than what they hear.

5) CNN has apparently tried to stake out the middle ground in the debate, and failed miserably. Anderson Cooper used crass oral sex jokes about tax protestors. He later “apologized.” Of course, that doesn’t mean he didn’t believe what he said, because he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t believe it. Anderson Cooper is openly gay, and so is his liberal agenda. His sexual orientation should be irrelevant. If he was a good reporter, he would be able to practice the "no bull/no bias" he to which he pays lip service.

6) CNBC, the NBC business channel, was ordered to lighten up on Obama criticism, and now offers Arianna Huffington and Howard Dean as regular guest commentators on its Squawk Box morning show.

What bothers me about all of the above is that these news networks are owned by conglomerates who have tacitly given their approval to the editorial content of their media outlets. Why? When things don’t add up, my general rule is to follow the money. If something doesn’t add up, it is usually money that is the missing in the equation.

GE is the most obvious of the culprits. Jeff Immelt is looking for huge government contracts relating to wind turbines and the medical information processing for General Electric, and he is willing to prostitute NBC news to get what he wants. I am a General Electric shareholder. And this is making me very angry.

As for Disney (ABC) or Viacom (CBS), who knows what’s in it for them. Time Warner owns CNN, and Ted Turner’s liberal bias apparently still remains at the news network he founded.

America has lost something in this near monopoly of liberal/progressive viewpoints in the most watched news broadcasts in the country. On the other hand, the American public isn’t stupid. Overall viewership for mainstream media news programs is down. The number of people watching Fox News is up. Rush Limbaugh’s listening audience has never been higher.

Sooner or later, the networks will have to wise up. As David Letterman has found out the hard way, you can’t afford to alienate half the population and keep your ratings up. Conservatives make up the largest ideological voting block in the United States. People know a snow job when they see it.

The Destruction of The Rule of Law

Richard Nixon, on his worst day, could not do the damage that Barack Obama has done to this nation by negating the Rule of Law. Nothing is more important for the survival of the nation as the Rule of Law. We are equal under the law. Justice is blind. That is sacrosanct and is the basis of our entire economic and political system. This is scary stuff, and the reasons for his trampling the Rule of Law and the Constitution sound so plausible, that when the inevitable abyss is reached, a fiddling public will wonder what happened.

The country certainly is in an economic quagmire. Economic upheaval is around us as old line industries collapse while technology companies are the cusp of another massive revival. The collapse of the Detroit, not the American, auto industry is having grave consequences for the entire Great Lakes region. Jobs being lost mean economic upheaval as factories shut down, and populations shift. It is painful. It is scary. And the government should be doing everything possible to assist those folks who have lost their jobs to feed their families, train for new jobs, and to move if necessary. What the government should not do is throw the foundation upon which this country has thrived out the window in the name of political expediency.

President Obama, in the name of saving jobs, has engineered the takeover of General Motors and Chrysler by the UAW and the Federal Government. It has done so with NO AUTHORIZATION OR AUTHORITY FROM CONGRESS OR ANY CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS. You have just witnessed a strong arm government muscle property rights away from private citizens by pure thuggery. Even the US Supreme Court has rolled over for what King Obama. There is no oversight. There is no checks and balances. He has acted as any dictator in a banana republic would act. Our system has collapsed.

Do you feel any different? Probably not. Do you see any difference in your daily life? Probably not. You will, though. You will wake up one morning when the government comes banging on your door to take what it thinks you shouldn't have. Private property as understood by this nation for over 200 years has been destroyed by fiat of an American dictator. Every check and balance to prevent this has failed.

From my days in high school, I have always believed that the danger to our democracy would come from the left rather than the right wing of he political spectrum. It is insidious, and creeps up when you aren't looking.

In the process of engineering his socialist coup, Obama has installed a complete shadow cabinet void of any and all congressional oversight. While the legislature confirms his official cabinet, Obama has developed a complete entity under the executive branch where the true power lies. The person in charge of the stolen auto industry, the car czar, is a 31 year old political hack with no business experience let alone car experience. Then there is the health care czar, and the newly appointed pay czar, who will regulate what TARP companies can pay their executives, and coming soon, what you are allowed to make.

All the while, the media has completely failed in challenging this economic system restructuring unprecedented in American history, and the complete neutering of the legislative branch in favor a centralized executive with unlimited and unchecked power.

In the meantime, Rule of Law is being trampled on. Who, in their right mine, would loan the "new" Chrysler and General Motors a dime knowing that Obama and his thugs are lurking in the wings to change the rules of the game if things don't go the way Obama wants. And one day soon, all of this will effect you. Right now, bonds and priorities and percentage ownerships sounds foreign. But the goal of these folks is power and control to force on you their vision of utopia. BECAUSE IF HE CAN DO IT TO THEM, HE CAN DO IT TO YOU... AND HE WILL!!!

If the Rule of Law is displaced by empathy or political expediency or ideology or just plain arrogance of a power hungry president, we are finished as a nation. While we are attempting to jump start credit, we are undermining the very foundation on which credit is built, reliance on the Rule of Law. Short term pain is better than long term disaster.