Are we approaching the silly season or the season of pretending?
If you look closely you can see a bit of color appearing in the leaves of the Oaks and Maples. The Canadian geese around the lake at Freedom Park seem to have taken on a bit of restlessness. If you listen carefully on these still warm nights that’s not just sushi fatigue you can almost hear spreading among the bankers of Dilworth and Meyers Park. The fall approaches with an ever-quickening step, its very name portending a decline of sorts. The government’s continued publishing of numbers even they don’t believe any more doesn’t hold back the looming reality that is beginning to penetrate through the fog of specious economic prognostications. Even as the day traders, huddled before their flat screens, nervously pray to the gods of CNBC that it’s all just a bad dream; still those visions of shrinking index numbers and negative equity just won’t go away. A seaming weariness grows and an almost imperceptible groan is heard all along Tryon Street. Pedestrians along the Overstreet Mall take furtive glances at each other, each with that unanswered question in their eye; what was that the sound we just heard, perhaps the economy taking that final sigh before slipping into a coma?
So why shouldn’t it? After all we’ve had peak credit and peak oil and all the other peaks visible to the denizens of the lower floors. Now the season of peak pretending has come and gone in an instant. All our pretending bought us reprieve from the havoc of mismanagement and fraud didn’t it? We all knew that the true conditions would reveal themselves eventually, but please God just not today. Now their specter is on the rise, worse than any of our Grandparents nightmares from the ‘30’s. As someone once said, “When nothing is believable, what’s the point in pretending any more?”
When a new reality sets in, it’s time to do some reassessment. We’re looking at some “bad ju-ju” here. Too many years of getting something for nothing, knowing full well that it always ends in tragedy, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. All those things we have refused to restructure and resize to conform to the reality we denied existed are about to be done for us by the immutable laws of history and economics. What was once a nation of hardworking self-reliant and for the most part moral citizens has become inhabited by far too many over-entitled, self-indulgent and yes at times barbaric morons ruled by thieves and con artists calling themselves financers and politicians. What was once solely the realm of economics is about to become political, and dangerously so.
While we bemoan our losses in our 401ks, our home equity and manufacturing jobs, there is a greater loss many as yet fail to recognize. The loss of the rule of law, without which we enter the wasteland of nothing matters and anything goes wherein consequently, everything goes. That we had the rule of law is what has kept China and Japan and others buying our debt for all these years. Their continued buying was predicated in the belief that in the U.S. would enforce those contracts because that was the law. It wasn’t arbitrary and after all in spite of our flaws it made thing work better. As the rule of law disintegrates we kid ourselves to we think the rest of the world doesn’t notice. They are beginning to stop believing in our money, indeed in our future. As that confidence is lost they will sell all those billions in Treasuries for whatever they can get, and our economy will get flushed away like a quick summer flash flood down Little Sugar Creek.
Like the line from Cool Hand Luke “What we have here is a failure to communicate” - honestly, by all of our political leaders, both left and right. The separation between what politicians say and what people are actually experiencing has widened to an unbridgeable chasm. Example, Obama comes out in praise of the new Chevy Volt as the savior of the auto industry, except at $41,000 no one but the costal elites can afford it and even they won’t buy it. Why would they, that new BMW or Lexus is much flashier anyway. Example, Senator McConnell doesn’t want corporations to have to publicly disclose just which political ads they are paying for, claiming it will lead to job losses. Really? Or is he just running cover for their dubious justifications for shipping even more jobs overseas?
It isn’t just government that has failed us. It’s the news media, businesses, the education system, even the courts. All have become the political instrument of one faction or another, and hence all have become suspect. And why shouldn’t they? Just look at the new so-called banking regulation bill. Two thousand pages? That isn’t the rule of law, that’s just deliberately adding more chaos to an already overly complex chaotic system. Why, so they can tell us they did something? Wouldn’t it have been far more effective to just admit that a mistake was made in repealing the Glass-Steagall act and reinstate it? But why reinstate an effective law that was less than forty pages when they can birth a monstrosity of two thousand pages that no one has read never mind understands except maybe the bureaucrats that will use it as a shield for the fat cats and a bludgeon against honest businesses and citizens.
The fall of election years used to be characterized as the silly season, now I think it’s going to just be crazy and irrational. Many will forget how it’s our institutions that have deliberately misled us; their confusions will devolve into a vicious certitude devoid of any semblance of reality. Demands for trials for our perceived enemies in the kangaroo court of public opinion will become just what they are, another mockery of the rule of law. Will the chaos in political arena and the chaos in the markets become reflections of each other? We all need to pray that things don’t unravel, because if they do it could well become a cascade. Like the old analogy; when you have a fire in the Circus tent, don’t expect too much from the clowns’ bucket brigade. Up to now all our elected clowns have done is throw more kindling and kerosene onto the funeral pyre.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this sense, but a lot more of us need to start paying attention to that prickly feeling as the hairs on the back of our neck start to stand up with each new absurdity. Oh what the heck maybe I just need to take a vacation, the politicians have everything covered right? And what they don’t the gods of CNBC do, right? Right?
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
The Deficit, Inflation and the Theater of the Absurd
Let’s face it folks the economy is in a severe recession. As both a cause and effect of this recession the US banking system took a crash in the Fall of 2008, a crash that is still ongoing some two years later.
What the recession and the banking crisis has caused are a fall in cumulative demand levels and a fall in cumulative asset value. People are spending less, and asset values have fallen, in both nominal terms and as compared to any basket of hard commodities.
It is in these two measures of economics that divide current American macroeconomic thought into two camps. The first group looks at cumulative or aggregate demand levels, while the second looks at cumulative or aggregate asset values—each camp sees their particular object as the basic underpinning of economic growth, development and prosperity. So when either of these camps see their chosen metric slide, they become unhinged. They declare a crisis and further declare that “something must be done”.
Well something has been done, repeatedly, over decades: it's called The Deficit.
To counter falling demand levels, the Federal Government launches massive spending programs, financing the spending with debt issued by the Treasury. And now that the first massive spending program has had negligible results they are of course looking at creating another big spending package some time soon. This will of course keep the demand camp happy.
At the same time, to combat the fall in asset values, the Federal Reserve Board has entered into an asset purchase program that is just as massive, unprecedented and irrational as the spending programs. Through a complex and deliberately opaque scheme, the Fed has relieved the Too Big To Fail banks of their toxic assets, and given them cash. The Too Big To Fail banks then turn around and use that cash to purchase the very Treasury bonds which are being used to finance the massive spending programs. What results is a big incestuous kabuki dance of collusion and corruption between the Treasury, the Fed and the TBTF banks. Whether it will be the courts or history that lays bare the underlying criminality only time will tell. But on the face of it, it looks criminal to me.
So herein is the yin and the yang, the Janus if you will, of The Deficit, more Federal spending on the one face, and more propping up of asset values on the other.
But don’t be confused, The Deficit (upper case) I refer to is not the fiscal or budgetary shortfall. I am defining The Deficit as a structure of policy, a political mentality. This mentality is shared by both demand and asset based economists. In this realm of The Deficit, the larger economic policy questions are no longer either/or; instead they become both/and.
Under this construct all policy options are on the table, because according to this macroeconomic policy known as The Deficit, the budgetary shortfall (the deficit, lower case) can never result in the US going bankrupt. Both sides of the political aisle are in concurrence. As Dick Cheney phrased it, “deficits don’t matter.” So then develops a political attitude that The Deficit as an economic policy can just continue indefinitely.
Never mind that historically The Deficit is without precedent: Never before has a reserve currency provider accumulated this much debt, based on a currency that floats on nothing more than military power. So this then becomes the critical issue: The dollar is a fiat currency. The Roman, French, Spanish, British, Austro-Hungarian empires, all went way into debt on numerous occasions, but none ever did it on the basis of a purely fiat currency. The US is the first to do so.
The Deficit as policy of US has had several definable effects:
1. It has allowed the Federal Government to finance all of its spending programs, satisfying the demand camp. No need for political talk of “tough choices”—the Federal Government has been transformed into the Great American Teet.
2. It has allowed the TBTF banks to deny the fact that they are broke. The FED’s toxic asset purchase program has kept the banks solvent in a perceptual if not practical sense; they have the cash to pay off their liabilities. At the same time and more importantly from the FED's point of view, it has propped up deteriorating asset values, again in a perceptual if not practical sense.
3. It has created budgetary shortfalls after budgetary shortfalls of overwhelming proportions. Debt is rapidly approaching 100% of GDP, with no end in sight.
4. Lastly, and most importantly and dangerously, it has instilled a generalized delusion amongst policy makers and politicians alike that the budgetary shortfalls and accumulated debt do not matter, and that liquidity and stimulus simply must be provided in the face of a crisis. The rationale being that the economy is incapable of withstanding the shock of a change in policy.
It is argued by some that the most important of all of these effects is that as the accumulated debt has crossed the 100% of GDP mark, nothing bad has happened. This has given far too many a false sense of security, chicken little was wrong today, things are the same today as yesterday. Warm in their self-delusion the policy makers have in essence said “Who cares about the deficit, let’s keep on spending.”
But this begs the question: What if the sky does fall? What if we are just experiencing the lull before the storm? Just how long do they think we can continue down this path of accumulating budgetary shortfall after budgetary shortfall? It has to lead to some kind sort of reckoning, right? Think of it like a drinking game, it sure feels good while you're at it, but you know full well that come the dawn you’ll feel like death warmed over.
So then the delusion becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, propigated via those in the know, the oh so clever, spouting sensible sounding words claiming that The Deficit will not harm us in the long run. We then get tag teamed by another bunch arguing that the accumulated debt, just from its sheer size, will become its own growth engine, and will create economic growth to such a point that “The Deficit” will pay for itself. To the politicians whose only desire is to get re-elected, this bit of financial wizardry almost seems believable, so they adopt it as policy.
If anyone dares contend that The Deficit and monetization might in time lead to hyperinflation, they are attacked, ridiculed and scoffed, in effect are told, “We’ve got deflation, folks—forget about inflation, never mind hyperinflation: We’re going spend our way out of the deflationary trend”. It’s then further argued that after deflation is brought under control by more spending the economy will begin growing again, and that’s when we’ll be able to address the deficit.
Do some research on the financial blogs about this point. Most of them, who should know better, argue that because we were in a deflationary environment, there are no current or foreseeable inflationary pressures. They will then move on to contend that since we are in a deflationary trough and inflation is unlikely, that hyperinflation is an impossibility.
These oh so clever people, and the people who believe them, what I refer to as “the usual suspects,” make a common mistake. They confuse inflation with hyperinflation. Sure they do look alike on the surface, they are both money losing value against commodities, wages, etc., over time. So their conclusion becomes that hyperinflation is just inflation on steroids. This is not just a fallacy but a very dangerous one.
Yes inflation is the result of economic over-heating, wage pressures or raw commodity prices, forcing up consumer prices up all across the economy. In other words, inflation is the economy consuming commodities, raw materials and/or labor, to meet demand. These are all real and measurable factors in economic terms.
Hyperinflation on the other hand is an intangible, a psychological effect. It is the manifestation of the loss of faith: The loss of faith in the economy, the currency that is the instrument of the economy and a loss of faith that the politicians can do anything about it. It is not prices rising because the economy is expanding too quickly (whatever that means); it is prices rising because nobody believes that money is worth the paper it’s printed on.
Within the realm of hyperinflation there are two interconnected subtypes. Firstly you have the Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation as an example of out of control government money-printing. This example fosters the notion that hyperinflation only results from this kind of disorderly printing. Yes it is hyperinflation but it primarily the result of ageing despots grasping at dwindling power. It is not the systemic or psychological kind.
Secondly there is Chile’s hyperinflation in 1973 that led to the September 11 coup and Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation that led to you-know-who. These are the systemic or psychological kind, driven by a combination of real and perceived scarcity. This is what happens when the scarcity of basic commodities abruptly leads to a loss of faith in money. It becomes a psychological contagion, the belief that no amount of money will allow you to get what you need or want. This psychological dislocation of the population then leads the government directly into the first type, out of control printing. That in a nutshell is hyperinflation.
As was predicted by the deflationists in 2008 the US economy is most assuredly in a deflationary trough, the evidence is all around, and all too obvious, so I am not arguing otherwise. What I am contending is that the current deflation can tip over into hyperinflation, and rather quickly. The thing that could tip us over from deflation into hyperinflation is of course “The Deficit”.
Not simply the budgetary shortfall itself, but the policy embodied by “The Deficit”: The twisted delusion that the solution to the problem is to throw more money at it, spend more money, dump as much liquidity into the market as needed, to prop up the twin aggregates of demand and asset values.
This deluded corrosive sense that fiscal and budgetary shortfalls don’t matter is what I believe will tip us into hyperinflation. Policy makers and politicians have lost all fear of excess liquidity and spending as an instrument to overcome any problem. They will have no compunctions about adding to the deficit when the next crisis hits. That’s when hyperinflation will bare its teeth and bite us you know where.
If I had to venture a guess as to what will trigger a hyperinflationary catastrophe it would be either one of the larger Asian economies comes unglued or a sudden and unexpected commodity spike or. Not necessarily a big one, but it’ll be dramatic, and enough to cause a panic.
The stage will then be set, the audience is seated, and the curtain will rise on the first act of the hyperinflationary play. The opening scene will be a market panic, and it’ll be fast. By the middle of the first act the policy makers and politicians will take center stage and once again turn to The Deficit, opening the spigots of more liquidity and more stimulus. As the curtain falls on the first act the financial markets will finally begin to react to the realization that the debt is unsustainable: It will become obvious even to them that either all those the T-Bills cannot be repaid, or that if they are, it will be done through monetization, out of control printing at the FED.
As act two opens the psychology sets in and the panic begins feeding on itself. The decimal point will start shifting to the right with every new measure. Everyone will want to get off the stage, out of the dollar, and they’ll all want to be the first to hit the exit.
Anyone who watches the markets knows that they can turn on a dime, and that in the short term they are not rational. In panics they are no more rational than a junkie in need of a fix. As the second act closes everyone will be getting out of dollar denominated instruments. The cascade grows, as Wall Street fat cats and Main Street little guys try to move everything they can into hard assets: Precious metals, land, food, anything that is required consumption or can be seen as a store of value.
So then the final act will be hyperinflation as has been defined above: A loss of faith in money, and the belief that no amount of it will buy what you need.
The Deficit. He is both the producer and the director, orchestrating every move from the pit in front of the stage.
So as the final act unfolds faith in the dollar is lost, hyperinflation runs rampent, as government continues providing stimulus and liquidity which the populace will see for what it is, nothing but worthless paper. How the story ends I do not know, I wish I did.
I do know that actions have effects—I do know that massive deficit spending of a fiat currency will have consequences. I do know that the policy embodied by The Deficit has brought the US and indeed the worlds economy to the brink of seld-destruction—with no way to pull back from that brink. So before you think you can settle comfortably into your balcony seat there are only two questions that need to be answered: One, when will the economy finally tip over the edge, and two, what will give it that final push? Perhaps there is another question, one of a more personal nature, What have you done to prepare and protect yourself and your family?
What the recession and the banking crisis has caused are a fall in cumulative demand levels and a fall in cumulative asset value. People are spending less, and asset values have fallen, in both nominal terms and as compared to any basket of hard commodities.
It is in these two measures of economics that divide current American macroeconomic thought into two camps. The first group looks at cumulative or aggregate demand levels, while the second looks at cumulative or aggregate asset values—each camp sees their particular object as the basic underpinning of economic growth, development and prosperity. So when either of these camps see their chosen metric slide, they become unhinged. They declare a crisis and further declare that “something must be done”.
Well something has been done, repeatedly, over decades: it's called The Deficit.
To counter falling demand levels, the Federal Government launches massive spending programs, financing the spending with debt issued by the Treasury. And now that the first massive spending program has had negligible results they are of course looking at creating another big spending package some time soon. This will of course keep the demand camp happy.
At the same time, to combat the fall in asset values, the Federal Reserve Board has entered into an asset purchase program that is just as massive, unprecedented and irrational as the spending programs. Through a complex and deliberately opaque scheme, the Fed has relieved the Too Big To Fail banks of their toxic assets, and given them cash. The Too Big To Fail banks then turn around and use that cash to purchase the very Treasury bonds which are being used to finance the massive spending programs. What results is a big incestuous kabuki dance of collusion and corruption between the Treasury, the Fed and the TBTF banks. Whether it will be the courts or history that lays bare the underlying criminality only time will tell. But on the face of it, it looks criminal to me.
So herein is the yin and the yang, the Janus if you will, of The Deficit, more Federal spending on the one face, and more propping up of asset values on the other.
But don’t be confused, The Deficit (upper case) I refer to is not the fiscal or budgetary shortfall. I am defining The Deficit as a structure of policy, a political mentality. This mentality is shared by both demand and asset based economists. In this realm of The Deficit, the larger economic policy questions are no longer either/or; instead they become both/and.
Under this construct all policy options are on the table, because according to this macroeconomic policy known as The Deficit, the budgetary shortfall (the deficit, lower case) can never result in the US going bankrupt. Both sides of the political aisle are in concurrence. As Dick Cheney phrased it, “deficits don’t matter.” So then develops a political attitude that The Deficit as an economic policy can just continue indefinitely.
Never mind that historically The Deficit is without precedent: Never before has a reserve currency provider accumulated this much debt, based on a currency that floats on nothing more than military power. So this then becomes the critical issue: The dollar is a fiat currency. The Roman, French, Spanish, British, Austro-Hungarian empires, all went way into debt on numerous occasions, but none ever did it on the basis of a purely fiat currency. The US is the first to do so.
The Deficit as policy of US has had several definable effects:
1. It has allowed the Federal Government to finance all of its spending programs, satisfying the demand camp. No need for political talk of “tough choices”—the Federal Government has been transformed into the Great American Teet.
2. It has allowed the TBTF banks to deny the fact that they are broke. The FED’s toxic asset purchase program has kept the banks solvent in a perceptual if not practical sense; they have the cash to pay off their liabilities. At the same time and more importantly from the FED's point of view, it has propped up deteriorating asset values, again in a perceptual if not practical sense.
3. It has created budgetary shortfalls after budgetary shortfalls of overwhelming proportions. Debt is rapidly approaching 100% of GDP, with no end in sight.
4. Lastly, and most importantly and dangerously, it has instilled a generalized delusion amongst policy makers and politicians alike that the budgetary shortfalls and accumulated debt do not matter, and that liquidity and stimulus simply must be provided in the face of a crisis. The rationale being that the economy is incapable of withstanding the shock of a change in policy.
It is argued by some that the most important of all of these effects is that as the accumulated debt has crossed the 100% of GDP mark, nothing bad has happened. This has given far too many a false sense of security, chicken little was wrong today, things are the same today as yesterday. Warm in their self-delusion the policy makers have in essence said “Who cares about the deficit, let’s keep on spending.”
But this begs the question: What if the sky does fall? What if we are just experiencing the lull before the storm? Just how long do they think we can continue down this path of accumulating budgetary shortfall after budgetary shortfall? It has to lead to some kind sort of reckoning, right? Think of it like a drinking game, it sure feels good while you're at it, but you know full well that come the dawn you’ll feel like death warmed over.
So then the delusion becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, propigated via those in the know, the oh so clever, spouting sensible sounding words claiming that The Deficit will not harm us in the long run. We then get tag teamed by another bunch arguing that the accumulated debt, just from its sheer size, will become its own growth engine, and will create economic growth to such a point that “The Deficit” will pay for itself. To the politicians whose only desire is to get re-elected, this bit of financial wizardry almost seems believable, so they adopt it as policy.
If anyone dares contend that The Deficit and monetization might in time lead to hyperinflation, they are attacked, ridiculed and scoffed, in effect are told, “We’ve got deflation, folks—forget about inflation, never mind hyperinflation: We’re going spend our way out of the deflationary trend”. It’s then further argued that after deflation is brought under control by more spending the economy will begin growing again, and that’s when we’ll be able to address the deficit.
Do some research on the financial blogs about this point. Most of them, who should know better, argue that because we were in a deflationary environment, there are no current or foreseeable inflationary pressures. They will then move on to contend that since we are in a deflationary trough and inflation is unlikely, that hyperinflation is an impossibility.
These oh so clever people, and the people who believe them, what I refer to as “the usual suspects,” make a common mistake. They confuse inflation with hyperinflation. Sure they do look alike on the surface, they are both money losing value against commodities, wages, etc., over time. So their conclusion becomes that hyperinflation is just inflation on steroids. This is not just a fallacy but a very dangerous one.
Yes inflation is the result of economic over-heating, wage pressures or raw commodity prices, forcing up consumer prices up all across the economy. In other words, inflation is the economy consuming commodities, raw materials and/or labor, to meet demand. These are all real and measurable factors in economic terms.
Hyperinflation on the other hand is an intangible, a psychological effect. It is the manifestation of the loss of faith: The loss of faith in the economy, the currency that is the instrument of the economy and a loss of faith that the politicians can do anything about it. It is not prices rising because the economy is expanding too quickly (whatever that means); it is prices rising because nobody believes that money is worth the paper it’s printed on.
Within the realm of hyperinflation there are two interconnected subtypes. Firstly you have the Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation as an example of out of control government money-printing. This example fosters the notion that hyperinflation only results from this kind of disorderly printing. Yes it is hyperinflation but it primarily the result of ageing despots grasping at dwindling power. It is not the systemic or psychological kind.
Secondly there is Chile’s hyperinflation in 1973 that led to the September 11 coup and Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation that led to you-know-who. These are the systemic or psychological kind, driven by a combination of real and perceived scarcity. This is what happens when the scarcity of basic commodities abruptly leads to a loss of faith in money. It becomes a psychological contagion, the belief that no amount of money will allow you to get what you need or want. This psychological dislocation of the population then leads the government directly into the first type, out of control printing. That in a nutshell is hyperinflation.
As was predicted by the deflationists in 2008 the US economy is most assuredly in a deflationary trough, the evidence is all around, and all too obvious, so I am not arguing otherwise. What I am contending is that the current deflation can tip over into hyperinflation, and rather quickly. The thing that could tip us over from deflation into hyperinflation is of course “The Deficit”.
Not simply the budgetary shortfall itself, but the policy embodied by “The Deficit”: The twisted delusion that the solution to the problem is to throw more money at it, spend more money, dump as much liquidity into the market as needed, to prop up the twin aggregates of demand and asset values.
This deluded corrosive sense that fiscal and budgetary shortfalls don’t matter is what I believe will tip us into hyperinflation. Policy makers and politicians have lost all fear of excess liquidity and spending as an instrument to overcome any problem. They will have no compunctions about adding to the deficit when the next crisis hits. That’s when hyperinflation will bare its teeth and bite us you know where.
If I had to venture a guess as to what will trigger a hyperinflationary catastrophe it would be either one of the larger Asian economies comes unglued or a sudden and unexpected commodity spike or. Not necessarily a big one, but it’ll be dramatic, and enough to cause a panic.
The stage will then be set, the audience is seated, and the curtain will rise on the first act of the hyperinflationary play. The opening scene will be a market panic, and it’ll be fast. By the middle of the first act the policy makers and politicians will take center stage and once again turn to The Deficit, opening the spigots of more liquidity and more stimulus. As the curtain falls on the first act the financial markets will finally begin to react to the realization that the debt is unsustainable: It will become obvious even to them that either all those the T-Bills cannot be repaid, or that if they are, it will be done through monetization, out of control printing at the FED.
As act two opens the psychology sets in and the panic begins feeding on itself. The decimal point will start shifting to the right with every new measure. Everyone will want to get off the stage, out of the dollar, and they’ll all want to be the first to hit the exit.
Anyone who watches the markets knows that they can turn on a dime, and that in the short term they are not rational. In panics they are no more rational than a junkie in need of a fix. As the second act closes everyone will be getting out of dollar denominated instruments. The cascade grows, as Wall Street fat cats and Main Street little guys try to move everything they can into hard assets: Precious metals, land, food, anything that is required consumption or can be seen as a store of value.
So then the final act will be hyperinflation as has been defined above: A loss of faith in money, and the belief that no amount of it will buy what you need.
The Deficit. He is both the producer and the director, orchestrating every move from the pit in front of the stage.
So as the final act unfolds faith in the dollar is lost, hyperinflation runs rampent, as government continues providing stimulus and liquidity which the populace will see for what it is, nothing but worthless paper. How the story ends I do not know, I wish I did.
I do know that actions have effects—I do know that massive deficit spending of a fiat currency will have consequences. I do know that the policy embodied by The Deficit has brought the US and indeed the worlds economy to the brink of seld-destruction—with no way to pull back from that brink. So before you think you can settle comfortably into your balcony seat there are only two questions that need to be answered: One, when will the economy finally tip over the edge, and two, what will give it that final push? Perhaps there is another question, one of a more personal nature, What have you done to prepare and protect yourself and your family?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Kleptocracy and Misdirection.
The Kleptocrats from both sides continue to play their political games in Washington while our Liberty is being sold to the highest bidder. The so-called stimulus package is laden with pork and paybacks to the special interest groups that brought these thieves to power. I guess that explains the about 37% confidence rating people have that it will have any positive effect. The politicians and the media would prefer that the public look at the American financial crisis in isolation. The picture they paint from that perspective is bad enough, but don't you dare examine it as a self-portrait of the artists. Blame the banks, blame the lack of regulation, blame anyone but the politicians that created the mess in the first place.
But there is more than just the picture that is being put before us. Just because there are things off the edges of the canvas and unpainted by the artist doesn't mean they're not there and are not elements of what you can see. The wider view is there for all to see, and it does not take a whole lot of research to find it. But even if you can see those elements of the wider picture the last thing the kleptocrats want you to do is to bring them into focus and integrate them into that wider view.
I for one am not buying the "Don't look behind the curtain" sales pitch coming out of Washington. That the politicians have pushed the economy to the edge of collapse through profligate spending and irresponsible regulation is bad enough, but it's not just the US that is in peril. The economies of all of Europe are in worse shape than we are. Iceland has already gone bankrupt, Ireland is on the brink of default and all of Eastern Europe, only so recently liberated from the yoke of Communism is preparing to default on hundreds of billions in loans from Western Europe. The Russians have put all their eggs into the basket of high oil prices and are now reaping the whirlwind of budgetary collapse. Small wonder then, that they have resorting to their old ways of saber rattling and imperialist aggression.
On our own southern border Mexico is in such a state of chaos the viability of the government is in open question. Drug cartels have so intimidated and corrupted law enforcement and local governments that the crime there has become the prevailing way of life and is spilling over our border and spreading the cancer of chaos from Texas to California.
Here at home one state after another are facing budgetary collapses of their own. California seems a lost cause; Kansas has run out of money, many others are seeking to tax everything in sight, chasing fool's errand short term solutions to the seemingly insoluble.
In an attempt to keep the public oblivious to the chaos they themselves have created, the politicians are now embarked on a campaign of misdirection, a new crusade to narrow the public's focus away from seeing the problems created by their quintupling the money supply and the accumulation of massive amounts of un-payable debt. They would rather we be concerned with the "imbalance" of opinion expressed in the free market place of ideas! Conservative talk radio is to be targeted for having become a commercial success. This of course is being put forward in the name of "Fairness," or localization of radio content.
In their typical overreaching manner they will not be content with just demonizing the likes of talk radio. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is now looking at what policies could be put in place that would allow government oversight of the internet. Even looking so far as to require those who would editorialize, i.e. express their opinion, on the internet, to post links on their sight connecting to sights of opposing opinion.
It might be 25 years late but 1984 is here.
But there is more than just the picture that is being put before us. Just because there are things off the edges of the canvas and unpainted by the artist doesn't mean they're not there and are not elements of what you can see. The wider view is there for all to see, and it does not take a whole lot of research to find it. But even if you can see those elements of the wider picture the last thing the kleptocrats want you to do is to bring them into focus and integrate them into that wider view.
I for one am not buying the "Don't look behind the curtain" sales pitch coming out of Washington. That the politicians have pushed the economy to the edge of collapse through profligate spending and irresponsible regulation is bad enough, but it's not just the US that is in peril. The economies of all of Europe are in worse shape than we are. Iceland has already gone bankrupt, Ireland is on the brink of default and all of Eastern Europe, only so recently liberated from the yoke of Communism is preparing to default on hundreds of billions in loans from Western Europe. The Russians have put all their eggs into the basket of high oil prices and are now reaping the whirlwind of budgetary collapse. Small wonder then, that they have resorting to their old ways of saber rattling and imperialist aggression.
On our own southern border Mexico is in such a state of chaos the viability of the government is in open question. Drug cartels have so intimidated and corrupted law enforcement and local governments that the crime there has become the prevailing way of life and is spilling over our border and spreading the cancer of chaos from Texas to California.
Here at home one state after another are facing budgetary collapses of their own. California seems a lost cause; Kansas has run out of money, many others are seeking to tax everything in sight, chasing fool's errand short term solutions to the seemingly insoluble.
In an attempt to keep the public oblivious to the chaos they themselves have created, the politicians are now embarked on a campaign of misdirection, a new crusade to narrow the public's focus away from seeing the problems created by their quintupling the money supply and the accumulation of massive amounts of un-payable debt. They would rather we be concerned with the "imbalance" of opinion expressed in the free market place of ideas! Conservative talk radio is to be targeted for having become a commercial success. This of course is being put forward in the name of "Fairness," or localization of radio content.
In their typical overreaching manner they will not be content with just demonizing the likes of talk radio. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is now looking at what policies could be put in place that would allow government oversight of the internet. Even looking so far as to require those who would editorialize, i.e. express their opinion, on the internet, to post links on their sight connecting to sights of opposing opinion.
It might be 25 years late but 1984 is here.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Standing on principle
I am a free and sovereign citizen of a free and sovereign state. I relinquish certain of those rights to my state in exchange for that state’s guarantee to protect those and all of my God given rights, as enumerated in my state’s Constitution. Acting as an agent of its citizens, my state freely entered into a compact with other free and sovereign states to create a Federal government whose sole purpose is to act within a strictly limited authority granted to it by those member states; Said authority being too; 1. Act as the common agent of those member states and their citizens in relations with foreign powers, and to protect them from the infringement of their sovereign rights and the rights of their citizens by any foreign power. 2. To create and defend a common currency to be used within the several states and to set and control its value and its value in relation to foreign currency and, 3. To guarantee the free and unrestricted trade between the several states.
Further it is the responsibility of my state to protect my rights and its rights from usurpation by the Federal government should it seek to enact laws or exercise authority beyond those responsibilities granted to it by the several free and sovereign states.
I would sooner die fighting, with my personal liberty and moral integrity intact, going before my maker with a clear conscience on those accounts, than to surrender them to the usurpation of the Federal government. My personal liberty and moral integrity are not for sale at any price.
Further it is the responsibility of my state to protect my rights and its rights from usurpation by the Federal government should it seek to enact laws or exercise authority beyond those responsibilities granted to it by the several free and sovereign states.
I would sooner die fighting, with my personal liberty and moral integrity intact, going before my maker with a clear conscience on those accounts, than to surrender them to the usurpation of the Federal government. My personal liberty and moral integrity are not for sale at any price.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A Time to Say No. The Politics of America's Deconstruction.
I used to think that the leadership of the Democrat Party could be best characterized as little more than a bunch of "useful idiots" as Lenin put it. Fools so consumed with the preservation of their own power base that the needs of the nation as a whole were secondary at best, oblivious to the notion that they were driving us off a cliff just so long as they were the ones behind the wheel and looked stylish doing it.
Not that the Republicans were a whole lot better. Having squandered the great opportunity provide by both the "Reagan Revolution" and Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America," they took to spending like Democrats, and now that they have lost two elections in a row they look even more foolish than the Democrats. As if "standing on principle" now will produce any better result than arguing about the placement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. A day late and a few trillion dollars short.
Of late I have become convinced that there is something much more venial going on here. It's not just that the Republicans have sacrificed their souls on the same alter of political expediency that is the Democrat's stock and trade; it's that they have allowed themselves to fall into the trap that has been laid out for them.
The history of our nation has always been full of political contention. Underlying much of it however were always the concepts of reasoned compromise and the "loyal opposition." Who can honestly say they think political debate functions at a level of anything even resembling these concepts anymore?
The elements of the left, including a compliant news media, have buried the idea of "loyal opposition" and succeeded in replacing it with a system of vitriol that has divided us into two camps, both equally convinced that the other is not just of the opposite opinion but possessed of evil intent. Both sides become so convinced of their rectitude that any lie and provocation is justified means to achieving goals.
For the conservatives herein is the trap. Forced into a position of constantly being on the defense, they all too easily have adopted the tactics of the left in a vain attempt to counter them, not realizing that this is precisely the posture the left wants them to take. Having lured the conservatives into the trap the left springs it. Essentially saying "Look at those mean, uncaring Republicans, they call us names!" "We just want to help the children!" Thus positioning themselves as the perennial altruists the unwitting public laps up the "It takes a village" porridge as "just right," the panacea of all their woes, "we needn't worry the Democrats will save us."
The way is then paved for the endless parade of ever expanding social welfare and entitlements fed by a propaganda machine that convinces all too many that they have a "right" to be supported by government, that they have no obligation to seek betterment through their own effort. The all knowing and all caring government will see to all their needs. Bombarded by propaganda and outright lies they become convinced that the evil conservatives are trying to deprive them of their "rights." So blinded by misdirection they become oblivious to the chains of dependency the left has link by link tied to their ankles and shackled to the edifice of the nanny state.
The thing is not even the Democrats can reasonably believe that what little is left of the productive economy and the few taxpayers left can sustain an ever expanding program of social welfare "rights." The financial collapse coming out of such policy is as predictable as sunrise following the dawn. It's not that they don't care; it's that that is their intent. Herein is where the venality I spoke of earlier comes into play. This situation is not all arising out of some set of some set of random events. It arises out of a template laid down back in the mid 1960's. A template created by the protégés of Saul Alinsky.
What has come to be known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy was first published in The Nation magazine in May of 1962. What the authors referred to as the "orchestrated crisis" is to be hammer by which capitalism can be destroyed. The method is exactly what we are seeing; overwhelm the budget with so many benefit "rights" that the system collapses of its own weight. The plan of the Democrats is not to rebuilt America but to transform America, sacrifice the productive economy for the welfare state and in so doing destroy the very values that made America great.
If we as individuals don't stand up now and say no to this pernicious plan we will no longer be "citizens" of a great nation but merely "subjects" of the state.
Not that the Republicans were a whole lot better. Having squandered the great opportunity provide by both the "Reagan Revolution" and Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America," they took to spending like Democrats, and now that they have lost two elections in a row they look even more foolish than the Democrats. As if "standing on principle" now will produce any better result than arguing about the placement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. A day late and a few trillion dollars short.
Of late I have become convinced that there is something much more venial going on here. It's not just that the Republicans have sacrificed their souls on the same alter of political expediency that is the Democrat's stock and trade; it's that they have allowed themselves to fall into the trap that has been laid out for them.
The history of our nation has always been full of political contention. Underlying much of it however were always the concepts of reasoned compromise and the "loyal opposition." Who can honestly say they think political debate functions at a level of anything even resembling these concepts anymore?
The elements of the left, including a compliant news media, have buried the idea of "loyal opposition" and succeeded in replacing it with a system of vitriol that has divided us into two camps, both equally convinced that the other is not just of the opposite opinion but possessed of evil intent. Both sides become so convinced of their rectitude that any lie and provocation is justified means to achieving goals.
For the conservatives herein is the trap. Forced into a position of constantly being on the defense, they all too easily have adopted the tactics of the left in a vain attempt to counter them, not realizing that this is precisely the posture the left wants them to take. Having lured the conservatives into the trap the left springs it. Essentially saying "Look at those mean, uncaring Republicans, they call us names!" "We just want to help the children!" Thus positioning themselves as the perennial altruists the unwitting public laps up the "It takes a village" porridge as "just right," the panacea of all their woes, "we needn't worry the Democrats will save us."
The way is then paved for the endless parade of ever expanding social welfare and entitlements fed by a propaganda machine that convinces all too many that they have a "right" to be supported by government, that they have no obligation to seek betterment through their own effort. The all knowing and all caring government will see to all their needs. Bombarded by propaganda and outright lies they become convinced that the evil conservatives are trying to deprive them of their "rights." So blinded by misdirection they become oblivious to the chains of dependency the left has link by link tied to their ankles and shackled to the edifice of the nanny state.
The thing is not even the Democrats can reasonably believe that what little is left of the productive economy and the few taxpayers left can sustain an ever expanding program of social welfare "rights." The financial collapse coming out of such policy is as predictable as sunrise following the dawn. It's not that they don't care; it's that that is their intent. Herein is where the venality I spoke of earlier comes into play. This situation is not all arising out of some set of some set of random events. It arises out of a template laid down back in the mid 1960's. A template created by the protégés of Saul Alinsky.
What has come to be known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy was first published in The Nation magazine in May of 1962. What the authors referred to as the "orchestrated crisis" is to be hammer by which capitalism can be destroyed. The method is exactly what we are seeing; overwhelm the budget with so many benefit "rights" that the system collapses of its own weight. The plan of the Democrats is not to rebuilt America but to transform America, sacrifice the productive economy for the welfare state and in so doing destroy the very values that made America great.
If we as individuals don't stand up now and say no to this pernicious plan we will no longer be "citizens" of a great nation but merely "subjects" of the state.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Taxes for Thee, but not for Me, Crisis for us All.
It seems that every other appointment the President Ellsworth makes is some kind of tax cheat. Throughout the Presidential campaign we heard a lot of talk about sacrifice and "patriotic duty" to pay more in taxes. I guess this so-called patriotic duty extends to everyone except those in the new administration. Combine this with the piling on of unfunded mandate after unfunded mandate and it's not just that it's a house of cards it's that the foundation is built of unconstitutional sand that's going to wash away in a flood of inflation.
It's not just the individual citizens that are starting to get fed up with an out of control Federal Government but the States as well. Is it little wonder then that State after State are seeing resolutions introduced in their legislatures reasserting their rights under the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution. 8 so far and word is that some 20 more will see them introduced in the next few weeks. As the numbers grow it will bring forth a Constitutional crisis simply beyond the comprehension of President Ellsworth, but way beyond his ability to deal with as well.
Joe "the plagiarist" Biden was right Pres. Ellsworth is going to be tested, he just didn't foresee that it's going to be a combined test of an internal Constitutional crisis and an external threat coming from enemies who all ready see President Ellsworth and our nation as weak and vulnerable. Continuing to march down the corporativist road of combining business and government will only accelerate the crisis on both fronts.
It's not just the individual citizens that are starting to get fed up with an out of control Federal Government but the States as well. Is it little wonder then that State after State are seeing resolutions introduced in their legislatures reasserting their rights under the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution. 8 so far and word is that some 20 more will see them introduced in the next few weeks. As the numbers grow it will bring forth a Constitutional crisis simply beyond the comprehension of President Ellsworth, but way beyond his ability to deal with as well.
Joe "the plagiarist" Biden was right Pres. Ellsworth is going to be tested, he just didn't foresee that it's going to be a combined test of an internal Constitutional crisis and an external threat coming from enemies who all ready see President Ellsworth and our nation as weak and vulnerable. Continuing to march down the corporativist road of combining business and government will only accelerate the crisis on both fronts.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
And so it Begins.
If I'm not mistaken one of the lynch pins of the Democrat party's most recent electoral success was that for the last 8 years or so the Republicans had succeeded in intimidating the voting public by fear mongering about the war on terror. The Patriot Act was a usurpation of power blaa blaa blaa...... Gitmo, blaa blaa blaa.....
And yet now that the Democrats control both Houses of Congress and the White House they want to pass a fiscal monstrosity by calling it a "stimulus package." I am finding it hard to disabuse myself of the notion that I'm being fear mongered into accepting a crap sandwich that's being sold as Dr. Feelgood's magic Elixer.
Some of those in the all so well informed media and inside political circles have, much to their own chagrin, acknowledged that the new Messiah isn't exactly getting his way, or that the magic of the momment is fading faster than a drunken stupor induced quickie Las Vegas wedding.
It not as if our new President doesn't have his hands full as it is. Now it seems there are some new pressures soon to come to bare from an entirely unexpected quarter. There had been some whispers about it but now the cat is out of the bag.
That most ugly of spectors, at least for Democrats any way, has arisen. That old bugaboo that strikes fear into the heart of any good pandering Democrat - Federalism. It seems that just this week a Resolution was introduced in the New Hampshire House asserting of all things that New Hampshire is a free and independent State and that specificly, any law enforcement measures enacted by the Federal Government that are outside the bounds placed upon it by the Constitution can be considered null and void. That the Federal Government has no right to enfore laws within the State of New Hampshire that is does not have the authority to inact in the first place.
Now I can't personally atest to the makeup of the New Hampshire State Legislature nor the resolutions chances of passage there. But word of it having been introduced there will no doubt spread to other states that just may be considered more fertile ground in which to grow. A wide swath between the gulf coast and the Canadian border comes to mind.
For those who might be want to read the resolution for themselves, I would refer you to some of Pat Dollard's excellent work.
http://patdollard.com/2009/02/new-hampshire-fires-first-shot-of-civil-war-resolution-immediately-voids-several-federal-laws-threatens-counterstrike-against-breach-of-peace
And yet now that the Democrats control both Houses of Congress and the White House they want to pass a fiscal monstrosity by calling it a "stimulus package." I am finding it hard to disabuse myself of the notion that I'm being fear mongered into accepting a crap sandwich that's being sold as Dr. Feelgood's magic Elixer.
Some of those in the all so well informed media and inside political circles have, much to their own chagrin, acknowledged that the new Messiah isn't exactly getting his way, or that the magic of the momment is fading faster than a drunken stupor induced quickie Las Vegas wedding.
It not as if our new President doesn't have his hands full as it is. Now it seems there are some new pressures soon to come to bare from an entirely unexpected quarter. There had been some whispers about it but now the cat is out of the bag.
That most ugly of spectors, at least for Democrats any way, has arisen. That old bugaboo that strikes fear into the heart of any good pandering Democrat - Federalism. It seems that just this week a Resolution was introduced in the New Hampshire House asserting of all things that New Hampshire is a free and independent State and that specificly, any law enforcement measures enacted by the Federal Government that are outside the bounds placed upon it by the Constitution can be considered null and void. That the Federal Government has no right to enfore laws within the State of New Hampshire that is does not have the authority to inact in the first place.
Now I can't personally atest to the makeup of the New Hampshire State Legislature nor the resolutions chances of passage there. But word of it having been introduced there will no doubt spread to other states that just may be considered more fertile ground in which to grow. A wide swath between the gulf coast and the Canadian border comes to mind.
For those who might be want to read the resolution for themselves, I would refer you to some of Pat Dollard's excellent work.
http://patdollard.com/2009/02/new-hampshire-fires-first-shot-of-civil-war-resolution-immediately-voids-several-federal-laws-threatens-counterstrike-against-breach-of-peace
Thoughts on Personal Security
So there I was feeling secure in my world, surrounded by my stockpile of canned green beans, counting my silver coins and cleaning my guns. When it comes to my attention that my very lively hood was in immediate jeopardy! But not just my lively hood but that of another 500 million Americans as well. Ok maybe not 500 million others but at least 499,999,999 of us. I mean how could I possibly doubt such sage wisdom coming from Queen Nancy herself, it simply could not be possible that the great oracle of Sodom and Gomorra west (otherwise known as San Francisco) could be wrong! Things like that just don’t happen!
But then I saw that all was saved! President Ellsworth came to the rescue and told us all not to worry! He was not going to let any of those evil bankers make more than $500,000 a year! Saints be praised! The capital world was so impressed with such profound wisdom that they pulled another few tens of billions of dollars out of the stock market! Maybe they're concerned that I might be trying to corner the market in canned green beans. I think I had better check the futures numbers on that ASAP.
After having checked my green beans stocks I feel that I already have a large enough share of that market that I needn’t concern myself with being damaged by the green bean speculators any time soon. I’m going to need to find something into which I can diversify. I was thinking maybe vacuum pumps! There could not possibly be a whole lot of competition in the vacuum pump market. So as a careful investor I started doing my research. Lord was I in for a shock, someone had already beaten me to it and had the market all locked up. Even more shocking I find it was Queen Nancy herself! Seems NASA has hooked tubes to her ears and found a void big enough to suck the very existence out of a black hole! So who needs to go back to the moon there’s plenty of space right there on the Potomac!
But then I saw that all was saved! President Ellsworth came to the rescue and told us all not to worry! He was not going to let any of those evil bankers make more than $500,000 a year! Saints be praised! The capital world was so impressed with such profound wisdom that they pulled another few tens of billions of dollars out of the stock market! Maybe they're concerned that I might be trying to corner the market in canned green beans. I think I had better check the futures numbers on that ASAP.
After having checked my green beans stocks I feel that I already have a large enough share of that market that I needn’t concern myself with being damaged by the green bean speculators any time soon. I’m going to need to find something into which I can diversify. I was thinking maybe vacuum pumps! There could not possibly be a whole lot of competition in the vacuum pump market. So as a careful investor I started doing my research. Lord was I in for a shock, someone had already beaten me to it and had the market all locked up. Even more shocking I find it was Queen Nancy herself! Seems NASA has hooked tubes to her ears and found a void big enough to suck the very existence out of a black hole! So who needs to go back to the moon there’s plenty of space right there on the Potomac!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Is History Repeating Itself?
I have been an amateur student of history all my life and I can’t help but think that there is something of a “perfect storm,” not just on the horizon, but battering at the foundations of our Republic. It’s not just the multiple facets of the present financial crisis; they are but singularities within a much larger disaster that is hurtling our way.
I have had a sense from the very beginning of this election season that it would culminate in events of unforeseen proportions. To me the whole process was weighed down with all the distinctiveness of some very ugly history repeating itself. There has been a perilous historical trend in motion for the last twenty years and its pace has only been accelerated in the last two years, and indeed in the last few months.
We wonder why we struggle to compete in the world economy when for the last twenty-five years we have pursued a policy of de-industrialization, have implemented regulatory and litigation systems that strangle all potential for growth, all in the name of environmental globalism. Add to this mix the ballast of an old and bloated Union bureaucracy more interested in securing its own perks than protecting its member’s jobs and future. It’s akin to having dropped anchor and wondering why we can’t turn into the wind never mind make headway against the storm. I have to ask, to what end, cui bono?
Under President Clinton Congress birthed the Community Reinvestment Act, requiring that financial institutions make mortgage loans to people any reasonable analysis would have shown could never pay them back. These unserviceable loans were then traded in the market like commodities at unjustifiably inflated values, setting the table for the housing disaster and hundreds of billions in deficit spending. Allowing people to buy homes on what were essentially zero margins is little different from the low margin stock trading that precipitated the stock market crash of 1929. Again, to what end, cui bono? What subterfuge, political agenda, is behind this policy that has now brought us to this precipice?
We have turned our schools into not just the bastions of the teachers unions, but shrines to mediocrity that have systematically dumbed down our children. The idea of American exceptionalism, that very engine of American greatness, has been transformed into socialist propaganda piece on how America has “victimized” all we have interacted with. Our founding documents are no longer taught as the manifestations of the human desire for individual liberty and freedom, the very reasons we are exceptional as a nation and a people, but rather as impediments to hedonism and vague notions of “social justice.”
In such an atmosphere students are taught what to think rather than being taught the arts of writing and critical thinking. At the very least they dare not express critical thought for fear of becoming targeted for social condemnation as being “politically incorrect,” or given bad grades that may jeopardize getting into the college of their choice. Small wonder then, that being considered articulate has become an epithet. It has become all too easy for far too many parents to simply turn their children over to the state. Those parents who do become involved and question what and how their children are being taught or enroll their children in private schools are themselves ostracized as “politically incorrect” and or selfish for wanting better for their children than what the state may provide.
That this failure in our educational systems has become generational is at the very root of why we are no longer a people of divergent opinions in pursuit of furthering a common national interest. Instead we have become a people divided into partisan camps, more concerned with demonizing those on the other side than seeking fulfillment of needs critical to the nation as a whole.
This in turn has led us down the path of litigation and street protest every time there is a close election. Leaving the results of elections to the not so tender mercies of unelected judges, judges we already hold in contempt for legislating their own agendas from the bench, can only lead to the kind of corruption we would expect to see in third world nations. Again I ask, to what end is such policy, cui bono?
It was recently revealed that the Federal Reserve, which exists as a abrogation of Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution, and operates without any true oversight by any branch of government, has handed out two trillion dollars in “loans” in the last few months, but feels no obligation to disclose to whom the “loans” were made or what the terms and conditions were. That is the taxpayer’s money not the Federal Reserve’s. This amounts to three times the seven hundred billion dollars we were all told had to be appropriated for the so-called “bailout” back in September. To whom was this loaned? For what purpose are they going to use it? Why is the Federal Reserve refusing to disclose the terms to the Congress never mind the public? Whose signatures are on the authorizing documents?
It is precisely these kinds of actions that are rapidly making a lie of our founding concept that this is a government of “we the people,” who have only loaned our powers to our elected representatives. Yet our eyes remain closed to this theft of our money and our rights.
The multi-faceted financial crisis in the housing market will now inevitably and inexorably merge with the pending bankruptcy of the Social Security and Medicare systems and result in calamity with all the potential to make the suffering of the great depression pale in comparison. Such events will lay bare the inviability of a paper shuffling service economy, proof positive that it is no substitute for a wealth producing industrial economy. Widening international conflict and war will follow as surely as sunrise follows the dawn.
The culmination of our quadrennial election process has now left us with a man as President-elect who the vast majority of us know virtually nothing about, a man whose absence of real life managerial or diplomatic experience is unprecedented in the history of the American Presidency. Presented to the American people as a would be savior, all things to all people, under the empty vagaries of “Hope” and “Change” we have bought ourselves a pig in a poke.
That he himself, along with willing accomplices in much of the news media, have sought to obfuscate or minimize a personal history filled with a litany of Communists, nihilistic anarchistic terrorists and neo-Marxist liberation theologists is perhaps the greatest political fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.
In times of economic uncertainty empty rhetoric about impossible tax cuts and unrealistic endless government benefits makes for an all too easy sell to generations short changed by a politically compromised education system. Rhetoric aside there have been hints of his true agenda. His call for the creation of a civilian national security force as well funded and armed as the military should send chills down the spine of anyone with any knowledge of how demagogues of the past have worked. Both he and his newly selected chief of staff have talked about mandating compulsory community service. Since when has compulsory community service been anything other than part of a sentence for the conviction of a crime? Will failure to enlist in the President-elect’s new legions in and of itself become a crime? Just who or what will these new legions swear their loyalty too?
Such policies, far from uniting people, will only further divide us as a people, leaving large groups not just disenfranchised, but set up as disloyal to the new regime. As the new administration’s policies begin to fail under the weight of an economy over burdened with taxes and regulation and no longer capable of creating real wealth, rather than seeing the failure as systemic to the policies themselves, targets will be sought out on whom to lay the blame for the failure.
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
When discussing Nazi Germany we have long been told that “It could never happen here,” as if just repeating that like some sort of mantra would be all it would take to actually prevent it from happening. Don’t teach or try to understand the historical trends that led to it happening, just repeat the mantra. I for one have never been that naïve.
I have long hoped that I would never experience what the ordinary German went through in the 1930s. They too were presented with a silver tongued social activist, a rabble-rouser, supposedly up from the streets. Hitler was a man who most Germans knew next to nothing about. They did know that his NSDAP had a history that was replete with shouting down and physically confronting people with whom they disagreed, often with violent results. He forced his way onto the German political stage through oratory skills and empty promises. Just as today the economic situation in 1933 was highly uncertain, people’s jobs and pensions were disappearing, and he was a captivating speaker.
Throughout the elections of 1933 many people and the news media, refused to speak out for fear of retribution from the “brown shirts” of the SA. With the economic situation worsening by the day the NSDAP became the largest party in the Reichstag and Hindenburg had little choice but to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Then piece by piece the Nazis seized control of and transformed not just the German state but German culture as well. The Party and the State were to be one and the same. The red, black and gold of the traditional flag of German nationalism was replaced with the Nazi Party flag. The Boy Scouts were banned and replaced by compulsory membership in the Hitler Youth where all were inculcated into the new cult of personality. Government employees had to take oaths of office swearing loyalty not to the German Constitution, but to Hitler.
The sublation was complete; the rule of law was gone, replaced with the rule of men. Hegel’s Aufhebung was made manifest in the Fuhrer Stat of Third Reich.
So how could the German culture that had produced the likes of Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe and the German people, perhaps the best educated in all of Europe at the time, fall victim to a con artist like Hitler? The answer was given by Fritz Morstien Marx in his “Government in the Third Reich” published in 1936.
“The movement drew its strength from all those quarters that had come to identify bad times, or what had caused them, with the existing regime. The …. vote was in the first line a protest vote – not a national endorsement …. , but the emotional response to a man …. , a man propelled by a holy obsession, whose thunderbolt oratory made throngs sweat from psychic strain. The very impact of his ringing voice, of his unpretentious language, carried conviction. This was no ‘platform technique,’ or artful political electrotherapy, but the explosive outburst of faith. …. His was an argument for a better and richer life – an argument made invincible not so much through genuine eloquence, untiring repetition, and crude simplicity of presentation, but rather through the people’s keen realization of national and individual insecurity.”
The confluence of campaign promises between the NSDAP and Obama are stunning if you take the time to put them side by side; jobs for the jobless, money for the moneyless, and bailouts for the military-industrial complex. Blatant indoctrination of the youth, gun control, universal health care, and promising renewed pride and respect again in and for the country across the world.
Both campaigns succeeded with the aid of a compliant media. The alleged premise of both campaigns was the need for social justice and . . . changes. And the people surely got what they voted for, both then and now.
It’s all in the history books. Those Germans who objected in 1933 were shouted down, ridiculed, made the butt of jokes, and later disappeared into the Concentration Camps. When Sir Winston Churchill had the temerity to point out the danger of the Nazi menace in the House of Lords, he was met with a chorus of boos and labeled a troublemaker. Seams he was right, however.
This is not to say that our President-elect is going to suddenly transform into murderous sociopath, or that we need worry about being rounded up for simply opposing his policies. I am merely pointing out eerie parallels between the times and methods employed.
We do need to worry about the likes of a Congressional re-imposition of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” and then having it used in an arbitrary manner to stifle the public voice of those who disagree with the new administration. We do need to worry about compulsory public service being used to further partisan political agendas. We do need to worry about a “Domestic Security Force” being used to the same ends and in violation of posse commentates laws. We do need to worry about a “crisis situation,” real or manufactured, or “national security concerns”, real or imagined, being used as the excuse to impose any or all of the above without the consent of the people.
All would be done with the “best of intentions,” completely ignoring any law of unintended consequence or that the road to Hell is paved with them. We will be find ourselves eyeball to eyeball with what in the '30's was refered to as "Fascism with a human face."
I like to consider myself as practical, and at least objective within my own limitations, so I can either believe what evidence I have pieced together and what the historical records of some 75 years ago tells me or I can hope that my conclusions are wrong or misplaced, go back about my personal business and ignore what I think is about to transpire.
So dismiss me if you will, laugh at me if you must, think me a fool, sadly misinformed, or both. Perhaps so, but those of you who know me, know I have never been afraid to stand up and tell people exactly what I believe, and why I believe it.
I have never been so afraid for our Republic and its future as I am now. I pray I am wrong. I fear that I am not.
I have had a sense from the very beginning of this election season that it would culminate in events of unforeseen proportions. To me the whole process was weighed down with all the distinctiveness of some very ugly history repeating itself. There has been a perilous historical trend in motion for the last twenty years and its pace has only been accelerated in the last two years, and indeed in the last few months.
We wonder why we struggle to compete in the world economy when for the last twenty-five years we have pursued a policy of de-industrialization, have implemented regulatory and litigation systems that strangle all potential for growth, all in the name of environmental globalism. Add to this mix the ballast of an old and bloated Union bureaucracy more interested in securing its own perks than protecting its member’s jobs and future. It’s akin to having dropped anchor and wondering why we can’t turn into the wind never mind make headway against the storm. I have to ask, to what end, cui bono?
Under President Clinton Congress birthed the Community Reinvestment Act, requiring that financial institutions make mortgage loans to people any reasonable analysis would have shown could never pay them back. These unserviceable loans were then traded in the market like commodities at unjustifiably inflated values, setting the table for the housing disaster and hundreds of billions in deficit spending. Allowing people to buy homes on what were essentially zero margins is little different from the low margin stock trading that precipitated the stock market crash of 1929. Again, to what end, cui bono? What subterfuge, political agenda, is behind this policy that has now brought us to this precipice?
We have turned our schools into not just the bastions of the teachers unions, but shrines to mediocrity that have systematically dumbed down our children. The idea of American exceptionalism, that very engine of American greatness, has been transformed into socialist propaganda piece on how America has “victimized” all we have interacted with. Our founding documents are no longer taught as the manifestations of the human desire for individual liberty and freedom, the very reasons we are exceptional as a nation and a people, but rather as impediments to hedonism and vague notions of “social justice.”
In such an atmosphere students are taught what to think rather than being taught the arts of writing and critical thinking. At the very least they dare not express critical thought for fear of becoming targeted for social condemnation as being “politically incorrect,” or given bad grades that may jeopardize getting into the college of their choice. Small wonder then, that being considered articulate has become an epithet. It has become all too easy for far too many parents to simply turn their children over to the state. Those parents who do become involved and question what and how their children are being taught or enroll their children in private schools are themselves ostracized as “politically incorrect” and or selfish for wanting better for their children than what the state may provide.
That this failure in our educational systems has become generational is at the very root of why we are no longer a people of divergent opinions in pursuit of furthering a common national interest. Instead we have become a people divided into partisan camps, more concerned with demonizing those on the other side than seeking fulfillment of needs critical to the nation as a whole.
This in turn has led us down the path of litigation and street protest every time there is a close election. Leaving the results of elections to the not so tender mercies of unelected judges, judges we already hold in contempt for legislating their own agendas from the bench, can only lead to the kind of corruption we would expect to see in third world nations. Again I ask, to what end is such policy, cui bono?
It was recently revealed that the Federal Reserve, which exists as a abrogation of Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution, and operates without any true oversight by any branch of government, has handed out two trillion dollars in “loans” in the last few months, but feels no obligation to disclose to whom the “loans” were made or what the terms and conditions were. That is the taxpayer’s money not the Federal Reserve’s. This amounts to three times the seven hundred billion dollars we were all told had to be appropriated for the so-called “bailout” back in September. To whom was this loaned? For what purpose are they going to use it? Why is the Federal Reserve refusing to disclose the terms to the Congress never mind the public? Whose signatures are on the authorizing documents?
It is precisely these kinds of actions that are rapidly making a lie of our founding concept that this is a government of “we the people,” who have only loaned our powers to our elected representatives. Yet our eyes remain closed to this theft of our money and our rights.
The multi-faceted financial crisis in the housing market will now inevitably and inexorably merge with the pending bankruptcy of the Social Security and Medicare systems and result in calamity with all the potential to make the suffering of the great depression pale in comparison. Such events will lay bare the inviability of a paper shuffling service economy, proof positive that it is no substitute for a wealth producing industrial economy. Widening international conflict and war will follow as surely as sunrise follows the dawn.
The culmination of our quadrennial election process has now left us with a man as President-elect who the vast majority of us know virtually nothing about, a man whose absence of real life managerial or diplomatic experience is unprecedented in the history of the American Presidency. Presented to the American people as a would be savior, all things to all people, under the empty vagaries of “Hope” and “Change” we have bought ourselves a pig in a poke.
That he himself, along with willing accomplices in much of the news media, have sought to obfuscate or minimize a personal history filled with a litany of Communists, nihilistic anarchistic terrorists and neo-Marxist liberation theologists is perhaps the greatest political fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.
In times of economic uncertainty empty rhetoric about impossible tax cuts and unrealistic endless government benefits makes for an all too easy sell to generations short changed by a politically compromised education system. Rhetoric aside there have been hints of his true agenda. His call for the creation of a civilian national security force as well funded and armed as the military should send chills down the spine of anyone with any knowledge of how demagogues of the past have worked. Both he and his newly selected chief of staff have talked about mandating compulsory community service. Since when has compulsory community service been anything other than part of a sentence for the conviction of a crime? Will failure to enlist in the President-elect’s new legions in and of itself become a crime? Just who or what will these new legions swear their loyalty too?
Such policies, far from uniting people, will only further divide us as a people, leaving large groups not just disenfranchised, but set up as disloyal to the new regime. As the new administration’s policies begin to fail under the weight of an economy over burdened with taxes and regulation and no longer capable of creating real wealth, rather than seeing the failure as systemic to the policies themselves, targets will be sought out on whom to lay the blame for the failure.
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
When discussing Nazi Germany we have long been told that “It could never happen here,” as if just repeating that like some sort of mantra would be all it would take to actually prevent it from happening. Don’t teach or try to understand the historical trends that led to it happening, just repeat the mantra. I for one have never been that naïve.
I have long hoped that I would never experience what the ordinary German went through in the 1930s. They too were presented with a silver tongued social activist, a rabble-rouser, supposedly up from the streets. Hitler was a man who most Germans knew next to nothing about. They did know that his NSDAP had a history that was replete with shouting down and physically confronting people with whom they disagreed, often with violent results. He forced his way onto the German political stage through oratory skills and empty promises. Just as today the economic situation in 1933 was highly uncertain, people’s jobs and pensions were disappearing, and he was a captivating speaker.
Throughout the elections of 1933 many people and the news media, refused to speak out for fear of retribution from the “brown shirts” of the SA. With the economic situation worsening by the day the NSDAP became the largest party in the Reichstag and Hindenburg had little choice but to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Then piece by piece the Nazis seized control of and transformed not just the German state but German culture as well. The Party and the State were to be one and the same. The red, black and gold of the traditional flag of German nationalism was replaced with the Nazi Party flag. The Boy Scouts were banned and replaced by compulsory membership in the Hitler Youth where all were inculcated into the new cult of personality. Government employees had to take oaths of office swearing loyalty not to the German Constitution, but to Hitler.
The sublation was complete; the rule of law was gone, replaced with the rule of men. Hegel’s Aufhebung was made manifest in the Fuhrer Stat of Third Reich.
So how could the German culture that had produced the likes of Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe and the German people, perhaps the best educated in all of Europe at the time, fall victim to a con artist like Hitler? The answer was given by Fritz Morstien Marx in his “Government in the Third Reich” published in 1936.
“The movement drew its strength from all those quarters that had come to identify bad times, or what had caused them, with the existing regime. The …. vote was in the first line a protest vote – not a national endorsement …. , but the emotional response to a man …. , a man propelled by a holy obsession, whose thunderbolt oratory made throngs sweat from psychic strain. The very impact of his ringing voice, of his unpretentious language, carried conviction. This was no ‘platform technique,’ or artful political electrotherapy, but the explosive outburst of faith. …. His was an argument for a better and richer life – an argument made invincible not so much through genuine eloquence, untiring repetition, and crude simplicity of presentation, but rather through the people’s keen realization of national and individual insecurity.”
The confluence of campaign promises between the NSDAP and Obama are stunning if you take the time to put them side by side; jobs for the jobless, money for the moneyless, and bailouts for the military-industrial complex. Blatant indoctrination of the youth, gun control, universal health care, and promising renewed pride and respect again in and for the country across the world.
Both campaigns succeeded with the aid of a compliant media. The alleged premise of both campaigns was the need for social justice and . . . changes. And the people surely got what they voted for, both then and now.
It’s all in the history books. Those Germans who objected in 1933 were shouted down, ridiculed, made the butt of jokes, and later disappeared into the Concentration Camps. When Sir Winston Churchill had the temerity to point out the danger of the Nazi menace in the House of Lords, he was met with a chorus of boos and labeled a troublemaker. Seams he was right, however.
This is not to say that our President-elect is going to suddenly transform into murderous sociopath, or that we need worry about being rounded up for simply opposing his policies. I am merely pointing out eerie parallels between the times and methods employed.
We do need to worry about the likes of a Congressional re-imposition of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” and then having it used in an arbitrary manner to stifle the public voice of those who disagree with the new administration. We do need to worry about compulsory public service being used to further partisan political agendas. We do need to worry about a “Domestic Security Force” being used to the same ends and in violation of posse commentates laws. We do need to worry about a “crisis situation,” real or manufactured, or “national security concerns”, real or imagined, being used as the excuse to impose any or all of the above without the consent of the people.
All would be done with the “best of intentions,” completely ignoring any law of unintended consequence or that the road to Hell is paved with them. We will be find ourselves eyeball to eyeball with what in the '30's was refered to as "Fascism with a human face."
I like to consider myself as practical, and at least objective within my own limitations, so I can either believe what evidence I have pieced together and what the historical records of some 75 years ago tells me or I can hope that my conclusions are wrong or misplaced, go back about my personal business and ignore what I think is about to transpire.
So dismiss me if you will, laugh at me if you must, think me a fool, sadly misinformed, or both. Perhaps so, but those of you who know me, know I have never been afraid to stand up and tell people exactly what I believe, and why I believe it.
I have never been so afraid for our Republic and its future as I am now. I pray I am wrong. I fear that I am not.
Just For Starters
Now that blogging has become the medium of choice for may I guess now its my turn to put in my two cents worth. As a life long Republican most of what I post here will of course be from the political right, not always but most of the time. Any and all who come across my postings are of course welcome to comment. I only ask that if you disagree with my commentary is that you remain civil. I will do my best to remain so myself.
The name of this blog comes from a no longer published newspaper from my old home town in Massachusetts that was owned and published by an old family friend and long time leader of the Republican Party. I hope you all enjoy what you find here.
The name of this blog comes from a no longer published newspaper from my old home town in Massachusetts that was owned and published by an old family friend and long time leader of the Republican Party. I hope you all enjoy what you find here.
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