Daniel Hannan on the World Economy

Daniel Hannan on the World Economy

Daniel Hannan has been making the rounds of Fox News shows lately, mostly because he speaks of the current emergency with stunning clarity. This clip from the European Parliament (he is a member) is what started it all.




If you have about six minutes, his appearance on the Glenn Beck show was brilliant (if you can ignore Beck's whining) as he explains how we are about to make Britain's mistakes, why we shouldn't, and the constitutional basis for our resistance. This Brit understands America better than most Americans.




Pretty good on Neil Cavuto's biz talk show as well, if you have the time, check this one out - it will be time well spent:

Part 1/2



Part 2/2

Much more from Daniel Hannan available here.

The Lie of the Century - Not the Change We Sought

The Lie of the Century - Not the Change We Sought

In Britain they have seen and thought about many things we Americans do not concern ourselves with, especially because they have been around a long time. Thus they are capable of distilling down what we colonists see as new and different into a repetition of the past, or at least they see through different lenses. Today Bartle Bull writes from England a masterful piece describing and putting into perspective what we are seeing from Obama and his attempt to govern by cult of personality. Like any tin pot dictator, he demands ever larger shares of the total economy whilst telling so many lies that it has been quite a while since he has told the truth on anything.

But that is my American's understanding of what is happening. Bull gives a much more measured telling of the tale. Not to be missed, I will leave you with a bit from near the end of the piece:

A post-partisan centrist: it was the lie of the century. It did not matter that Obama’s opponent, John McCain, was one of the most bipartisan national leaders of the last 20 years or that Obama was the single most partisan Democrat in the US senate. It did not matter that upon declaring his run for the presidency after only 142 days in Washington, Obama was only months removed from a career in the infamously corrupt Chicago Democratic political machine. Through aspiration or guilt, the backstory of this grandson of a Kenyan goatherd flattered many Americans, who, presented with a visibly aged and handicapped alternative in McCain, knew exactly what Joe Biden had meant when he called Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Messianic scenarios are deeply symbiotic. They are based on a compact with the believer. Obama’s believer compact went like this: “You wash away my historic sins and I’ll wash away yours.”

Now the real Obama has stood up. The moderate and sustainable version of the Democratic party personified by Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, based on personal responsibility and low tax, high growth economics, is under the bus with Reverend Wright, Obama’s 20-year religious mentor. Ideology is back. Coming from the most radical presidential candidate in the history of either party, this is no surprise. But to practical Democrats in a politically moderate country that is still based on a philosophy of robust individual freedom, this revolutionary expansion of the federal government is very worrying. Obama’s seizure of so much money and so much decision making in such basic areas of everyday life implies too much debt, too much inefficiency and too much control for a corrupt and distant political class. This is not the change that we sought.

Rats Are Deserting Obama's Ship

Rats Are Deserting Obama's Ship

One by one, former supporters of The Won, from both the commentariat and the business world, are writing columns and making public statements expressing their frustration that the chameleon is of a single color after all, and that color is not to their liking. Even as stalwart an Obama fan as Paul Krugman has had it with the latest beaut - Geithner's plan to subsidize the purchase of toxic assets. The Nobel laureate in economics does not see the economic sense in this plan, and sums his feelings about it thus:

But the real problem with this plan is that it won’t work. Yes, troubled assets may be somewhat undervalued. But the fact is that financial executives literally bet their banks on the belief that there was no housing bubble, and the related belief that unprecedented levels of household debt were no problem. They lost that bet. And no amount of financial hocus-pocus — for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to — will change that fact.

You might say, why not try the plan and see what happens? One answer is that time is wasting: every month that we fail to come to grips with the economic crisis another 600,000 jobs are lost.

Even more important, however, is the way Mr. Obama is squandering his credibility. If this plan fails — as it almost surely will — it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to persuade Congress to come up with more funds to do what he should have done in the first place.

Maureen Dowd, who may not be particularly serious, but is definitely quite popular and until quite recently a full throated Obama supporter, channels Shakespeare in her anger at Obama, here discussing the Porkulus bill:

“He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath,” the Fool told Lear.

And he’s truly mad that trusts in the promise of a presidential candidate to quell earmarks.

Even as solid a leftist as William Greider has written

Barack Obama can resist all this, if he chooses, but he seems conflicted. Obama's approach so far is devoted to restoring Wall Street's famous names, and his economic advisers tell him this is the "responsible" imperative, no matter that it might offend the unwashed public. Obama evidently agrees. He does not seem to grasp that the tone-deaf technocrats are leading him into a dead-end.

All these rats are deserting the ship just as Zogby has downgraded Obama's approval rating to 50-50. So a good question would be, why? Why has a president who was elected to such gushing praise from his supporters losing his support from so many opinion leaders? One good guess would be the disparate expectations Obama's fraudulent campaign promised.

This man was elected by perfecting a technique which enabled him to cause voters to project their own hopes and dreams onto him. He thus made himself the deliverer of so many disparate policy prescriptions, so many that there is no possible way to accommodate them all. He will continue to lose support, that is certain. The only question is whether or not he can pick up additional support from other quarters, mostly those quarters which did not vote in the last election - the ones who do not vote at all.

How Did We Get into this Obama Mess?

How Did We Get into this Obama Mess?

It has been said, here and other places, that Bush and Obama are two sides of the same coin, that there is no difference between republicans and democrats. More true than that is that Bush was the setup man for the scheme. He was demonized in a fashion never before seen in the USA, which made almost any democrat a shoo-in for election. But along came Obama, the perfect choice to please both progressives and moderates, with a side order of whites suffering from a guilt syndrome over our racist past.

Obama was a cipher - a man who could act as a rhetorical chameleon - who will be remembered for his ability to get majority support for a single day - election day. The republicans putting up a weak candidate made the whole thing inevitable.

The biggest difference between doctrinaire democrats and today's republicans is that their platforms and speeches attract different supporters. In reality the battle is not between the two dominant parties, it is US against THEM. The power is supposed to rest with the We the People, so the political class plays single interest political games to slice off constituencies one at a time. But since Reagan left office, both parties want nothing so much as power.

For all that I am not a conspiracy theory guy. I do not believe there is a single group (who once met at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek in 1954) that controls the major governments. Where I come from it is more about single individuals and groups all doing what they feel is in their own interest, with a tiny cabal (the NYC mayor has more political patronage jobs, at higher pay, than the White House) always seeking to manipulate themselves into more and more power. Coalitions rather than conspiracies rule. Now, under Obama, there is more power being accreted into the White House than at any other time since we threw out King George.

Even FDR failed to take over, no matter how hard he tried. He got lucky with the war, but luckily for us he was selfish enough to never appoint a successor. The danger to our republic has never been greater. I wish I had an idea what to do about this, other than opposing any incumbent for reelection in 2010. I hope, I pray, that the anti-incumbency movement grows big enough in time.

Still and all, the Obamanauts will create massive destruction to our government and economy until then. If they are not turned out in 2010, if they they are thus encouraged, the power grab may well be complete by 2012.

Style Over Substance, Obama and Iran

In yet another show of cluelessness in the realm of foreign policy, Barry Obama has lofted a meaningless video into Iran. Of course, consistent with the amateurish debacle of Obama's gift of DVDs to Britain's Prime Minister Brown, the color blindness of Obama and his state department are again on display, and breathtaking in their naivete. Obama decided to broadcast a video message into Iran with no cooperation from Iran's government, just as he goes over the heads of the media establishment here with his appearance on The Tonight Show. But the Persian Empire and its government is not the equivalent of the American media establishment, and a beamed propaganda channel is not the equivalent of a guest spot on the most popular show on late night TV.

To compound the problem, the piece was broadcast during the Persian New Year, Nowruz, so it is unlikely that many people saw it anyway. You Tube is banned in Iran, but the Iranian government did see it, and Ahmadinejad commented on the broadcast. Predictably, he said that words with no change in policy will avail Obama naught. And since the change in policy that Iran seeks can not be delivered by an elected American leader, Amadinejad may have to wait for either his ascent to Mahdi, or Obama's ascent to dictator, for him to get the American foreign policy he likes. Neither outcome appears likely to happen, but we live in interesting times, so we will have to see how this plays out.

The Roots of the GSE Mess

GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) especially Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are at the heart of the banking bubble that spurred our greater economic malaise. Not to let the naked shorters off the hook, but in the recent perfect storm, the unbridled lending made possible by the politically driven lending policies are the eye of the storm. There is plenty of blame to go around, and certainly neither of the major parties has clean hands in the matter, there is a lot of mendacity in the current debate. So let us turn to some video from the recent past and compare it to the congressional hearings on this subject from four years ago.


Bill O'Reilly has a bitter contretemps with Chairman Barney Frank - classic video as the populist expresses his high dudgeon over the economic mess we find ourselves in. All fingers point in all directions except for within.




Nancy Pelosi and democrats display their mendacity and cluelessness on the subject of markets, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:



And more video from the hearings four years ago, with republicans trying to rein in the out of control GSEs and democrats defending them and their hero, Franklin Raines, political operative appointed to head Fannie Mae, and his enormous bonuses, totaling over ninety million dollars over a little over five years. In a related event, Raines recently had to relinquish some of these ill gotten gains after losing a lawsuit over fraudulent earnings statements that enabled the inflation of the bonuses.

Pelosi On Display

Pelosi On Display

Accoding to Nancy, some of our most patriotic citizens are illegal immigrants. And this garbage woman is second in line for the White House after Biden?

We the People Stimulus Package

We the People Stimulus Package

An actually reasonable route to a return to national sanity in a six minute video. I can't recommend everything in it, but 90% ain't bad. It's a good time to be a patriot.



Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs.

And then this - the alternative, if We the Poeple do not act.

Shopping in Texas

How Do You Know You Are Shopping in Texas?

Companies to Boycott

Companies to Boycott

I don't know about you, but any company that spends its profits on lobbying the government to raise my taxes and energy costs will have to do without my custom. The organization BICEP is dedicated to the proposition that taxes are way too low and energy is way too cheap, and spends lavishly to raise my cost of living. So I do not buy their goods or services.

A partial list of these companies are:

eBay
Gap
Levi Strauss & Co.
Nike
Starbucks
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
Timberland

Now, I am not the type to organize these things - I spend too much time in the struggle for the legal tender, taking care of my family, and maybe even a little blogging from time to time, so it will not be my task to organize a boycott of anybody. But I would rather go barefoot than to buy the shoes of a company like Nike, I'd rather wear pajama pants than wear the jeans made by Levi or Gap, than to put more cash in their coffers which they will use to destroy my way of life. I know that it's trendy to support frauds like AGW these days, what with The Won winning and all, but there is just so much I can take.

Recklessness and Overreaching

Recklessness and Overreaching

Almost eight weeks in now and it is becoming clear what kind of a president we have, and voices fromn the heartland are becoming more strident in calling him out.

From a The Detroit News, editorial page editor Nolan Finley writes a bylined column headlined "Obama opens new era of recklessness" in which he avers:

The miraculous marketing machine that carried a junior senator into the White House is now at work trying to convince Americans that writing fat checks from an empty Treasury represents a giant step toward fiscal responsibility.
[snip]
Call it the Audacity of Hype. The president, casting himself as the somber task master of a frivolous people, is demanding sacrifice of every American. But there's little sacrifice in his budget. His entire claim to responsibility rests on raising taxes on the wealthy, an action that is as ideologically driven as anything George W. Bush put on the table and will likely do severe harm to the economy.
[snip]
The Obama budget perpetuates the have-it-now, pay-for-it-later mentality that has brought us to the brink of financial ruin. He isn't going to let the economic crisis deter him from enacting his hugely expensive social agenda. Nor will he heed warnings that his energy and health initiatives may place additional financial hardships on struggling taxpayers.

In his weekly radio address, the president explained, "like every family going through hard times, our country must make tough choices." But few families in tight financial straits can choose to borrow to accelerate household spending.
[snip]
Rather than exalting personal responsibility, Obama is encouraging dependency. His plan will turn more Americans from contributors to the system to recipients of government handouts.

Cutting the tax deduction for charitable deductions made by the wealthy will take an estimated $9 billion away from nonprofits and send it to Washington, where it will be redistributed as Obama sees fit. The idea of taking care of your own -- your own families, your own communities -- will become a quaint notion.
[snip]
Overall, the Obama budget will make Americans more dependent on government, explode the federal deficit, risk further crippling of the economy and leave the nation more exposed to its enemies.

If this is what responsibility now looks like, then we have for sure entered a new era.

The question the administration must ask at some point is when does the wielding of power become a weapon against oneself? Bruce Wilson, a columnist living in Washington, Utah, writes in The Salt Lake Tribune a piece headlined "Those who ignored rules should lose homes" with an even sterner tone:

During the run-up to approval for his mortgage bailout plan, President Obama frequently claimed it provided necessary and justifiable aid for those who "played by the rules" and "through no fault of their own" were being forced out of "their homes."

Like all of Obama's rhetoric, it sounded great and tugged at heart strings everywhere. But like too much of his rhetoric, it's a solution for a situation that doesn't really exist. And unlike many of the clever but dishonest straw men that Obama has created to sell his programs, this is one most Americans will see through.
[snip]
It's clear to anyone who is willing to be honest about the situation that most of those who will qualify for Obama's bailout didn't play by the rules. They agreed to mortgages they couldn't possibly afford, some right from the start, others when higher interest rates they agreed to kicked in at a later date.

Still others would have been fine with their original mortgage payment, but when the perceived value of the home skyrocketed they took out second mortgages to fund home improvements and all sorts of other things -- things they couldn't really afford unless they continued to suck additional artificial equity out of the home.

The root causes of the problem are so obvious and so different from the straw man created by Obama that it makes one wonder whether his life experiences have been so different from life in suburban and rural America -- where most home ownership is concentrated -- that he never learned the rules of homeownership.

These are not opinion pieces skewering a political opponent with rhetoric. These are plaintive cries for this madness to stop, backed up with fact and cold observation. Moreover, this is just a sample, as voices all over the land are attempting to put the brakes on what is widely perceived as a rush to impending disaster.

The question is, will the 56% of Americans who are still snowed by this radical young president open their eyes in time to stop him, or are they willfully entering into the Faustian bargain of Obanomics, where every man gives according to his ability, and all sheep receive according to their needs, and their demands. This is a test. Has a majority discovered that it can vote itself largess from the federal treasury? Even if there is no money?

Call it a national test of character. I can hardly wait to see how we score.

People Turning Away from Obamanomics

People Turning Away from Obamanomics

Interesting new polling just out, and it is becoming clear that the American people, or at least those who were polled, are not as stupid as some have feared. While many will yawn at the headline, which states that Obama is behind where Bush was in popularity 50 days in - as with all polls, and life itself, the interesting stuff lies within the details.

The details I find very interesting are the findings, and I quote from the article, not the poll numbers themselves:

Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.

That sounds to me like a complete disavowal of Obamanomics entire. More detail of how sophisticated this rejection of the lefty aganda really is lie within this paragraph:

Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.

Interesting stuff, much of which contradicts the feeling one could get from watching major media reports and speeches made by administration figures. Looking around on any polling site (I prefer Rasmussen) will provide a wealth of information. Quite a bit of it looks promising to me. Like the fact that only 43% of Americans want government to run health care, which is 17% behind the place the people were at when Clinton failed to pass his version of it - and Obama's version promises to be more intrusive, more government, and less choice than the plan Hillary went down on in 1993. Only 27% see the need for another stimulus package. And only 23% believe the government reflects the will of the people. That may be a few more than thought so a few years ago under Bush, but it still falls far short of a mandate for radical action by those same worthies.

So, while I seldom make much of polling data, in these days we need to take out our prediction tools, if only to discern whether Obama will succeed in his stated agenda of Change. He will get change, that is unavoidable, but it appears that Obama's style of change is not the change we ALL believe in.

Carbon Dioxide May Be Our Savior

Carbon Dioxide May Be Our Savior

Some readers might believe that the Anthropogenic Global Warming hysteria is dying down, but nothing could be further from the truth. While the theory, if ever there was one, of AGW has been conclusively debunked, the true believers are continuing to propagate rules and legislation worldwide that will mitigate CO2 emission. Many otherwise clear thinkers may have decided that this is not important, but it could be crucially dangerous to human life on this planet. Just check out this chart of historical global temperatures as they relate to "greenhouse" gases:


Note the periodicity of the temperature declines, which proceed into ice ages. That means ice over New York and Seattle, and much of Europe, miles deep. The next ice age is overdue. Now look at the current period. There is the proof that the current warm period has lasted longer than the others, and this runs concurrent with industrialization. Could it be that Carbon Dioxide is the only thing holding back the next ice age?

Now, I am not claiming that I know everything there is to know on this subject, but I do suggest that the theory I just expressed has as much chance of being true as any other. And we must remember that this is ice core data, which may not be consistent for the latest readings. Just more food for thought for any zero base thinker who is still seeking truth in this jumbled issue.

Racist Progressives and Integration

Racist Progressives and Integration

Star Parker writes about race relations in this country a lot, and has a piece up today. She runs through the history, but she misses a few points. I believe that she blames government too much, and fails to respect the idea that they have had a lot of help and guidance. Blacks have had some reprehensible leaders, and have not been well served by the partnership between them and racist white liberal government policies.

I find much of her explanation for what has happened since WW2 cogent and persuasive, but she leaves out quite a bit. Basically it was integration that caused this problem, IMHO. Not just the problem Star writes about, but the greater problem of our deteriorating society. First we told the blacks that they could not assimilate without help from the government, then that their children could not learn unless they were in school with white children. After Malcolm and Martin were killed, with the black philosophical leaders gone, new black leaders donned their mantle and embraced the integration philosophy as a tool to personal wealth and power. We all went along with it, since we could not foresee the insidious effect that was coming from this toxic progressive stew.

Then came welfare rules that were toxic to family formation and a social separatism that flowed from the forced integration. The result of all this well meaning liberal "assistance" was the fractured world we have today. The transnationals need us all to split into groups that transcend national borders, so we all became hyphenated Americans. We must resist this tide.

We can all cherish our traditions while assimilating as fast as we can. You should see my father's relatives. They live in their own world, and you can tell what group they belong to at a glance. There are many who hate them, but they have gotten along well in this society. We Americans must ask ourselves - what role did skin color play in Obama's election? Does not his election point to a world where cosmetics no longer matter?

We are who we are, not what we look like, or where we come from. Not what we wear or eat. Next presidential election we might well see a man with roots in Africa run against a man whose parents are from India. Yet Obama's theme song will not be Gangsta Rap as he dances with his wife and plays with his children, and Bobby Jindal is unlikely to sway to the stylings of Ravi Shankar on the Sitar with his family, no matter what any of them listen to on their iPods. We are all in this boat together, and Star making government out as the bogeyman begs the question of where the government gets its power, which plays into the hands of those who intend to enslave us all. The enemy is "Progressive," transnational, and socialist, and they are the people who tell you that Star Parker and Clarence Thomas are not "legitimate blacks." Are they really on our side? Or their own?

Prescription for Afghanistan

Prescription for Afghanistan

My understanding of the history and people of Afghanistan is the result of thirty five years of observation and study. I am often asked my opinion on the subject of what we should do there next.

We should learn the lesson we should have learned in Vietnam, but evidently didn't, or at least Bush and Obama didn't. Neither of them have read much military history. Obama does not even know the difference between a battalion and a brigade! Once again we have attacked with no strategy. We have had clueless leaders who will not listen to their Generals. In military action there is always the "So What?" factor to be considered. We went in and we killed organized Taliban resistance by stiffening the Northern Alliance, occupied Kabul and sprinkled outposts all over the countryside. So what? Now the Karzai government is more corrupt than King Zahir Shah had been, and Pashtun patriots murdered his family (for corruption, natch) long before the Soviets got there (I was). Slitting throats has been a fond pastime for these people since before Europeans started bathing. I have seen it done, and they truly enjoy the moment. No hellfire missiles can successfully stop a determined man with a dagger in his teeth. Every observer on the ground that I trust says that Taliban are stronger now than at any time since we defeated them.

We need to do in Afghanistan exactly what we need to do in Iraq. Move a couple of Divisions into bases in the deserts near the borders with Iran, on the east and the west, just in case we need them. (We will need them, and we do not need permission) If/when any one of the countries in the region allow terrorists to establish bases to train and prepare to attack American interests, kill them. Our weapons and doctrine are the best in the world at electronic recon and pinpoint attack. We can easily detect and liquidate any formation of company size (Mr. Obama - that's about one hundred men and their weapons) or above.

Let the Pashtuns deal with Taliban. Let them establish their own country if they can, but we should do nothing to undermine the government of Pakistan. After all they already have nukes. Iran on the other hand should be prevented from attaining nuclear power BAMP.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it, until or unless the facts change. But they have not changed for a long long time.

Economy Blues

Economy Blues

By now we are all tired of hearing the economic news. New lows for the Dow, new highs for unemployment, more economists predicting further doom and gloom every day. But at least we have our president to buoy our spirits.

Or, we used to. This new president is a singular piece of work. He seemingly cannot get out of campaign mode, still running against the miasma of Bush, promoting the doom to come as the result of the doom who just retired. This president appears to be absolutely clueless, and seems to compensate for it by acting decisive and determined. Yet, when he notes the unemployment figures, he claims that he sees the very size of the dislocations to be "astounding," which means, according to my dictionary, that he admits that he is " filled with bewilderment or wonder."

Even Bush, who has taken a real beating these last few years, would never admit to being bewildered at the reasons for our predicament. Can you imagine Clinton or Reagan admitting being bewildered, ever? Even Carter, who was clearly bewildered, would never admit it. Yet this new guy is so filled with narcissism that he has no compunctions about failing to at least pretend to tell us that he understands the current situation. How can we believe that an astounded man can lead us out of the wilderness?

Now we are faced with the ridiculous scene of Obama going to Columbus, spending at least ten million dollars of our money on the trip. The sheer sanctimony and hypocrisy of the flight is astounding as well. Isn't this the guy who said "If the taxpayers are helping you, then you have certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog," on Feb. 4, 2009 on NBC Nightly News? Now he flies to Columbus to campaign for reelection at a graduation ceremony for 25 police recruits. His stated reason for making the trip was to take credit for supplying their salaries. Read the transcript of what he said in Ohio. He took credit for everything but the sun rise.

that's what I intend to do as president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

So for those who still doubt the wisdom of our recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children because we passed this plan. I ask them to talk to the nurses who are still able to care for our sick and the firefighters and first responders who are still able to keep our communities safe. I ask them to come to Ohio and meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan.

(APPLAUSE)

I look at these young men and women -- I look into their eyes and I see their badges today, and I know that we did the right thing. These jobs and the jobs of so many other police officers and teachers and firefighters all across Ohio will now be saved because of this recovery plan; a plan that will also create jobs in every corner of this state.

Last week, we announced that Ohio would receive $128 million that will put people to work renovating and rebuilding affordable housing.

(APPLAUSE)

On Tuesday -- on Tuesday, I announced that we'd be sending another $935 million to Ohio that will create jobs rebuilding our roads, our bridges, and our highways.

(APPLAUSE)

And yesterday, Vice President Biden announced $180 million for this state that will go towards expanding mass transit and buying fuel-efficient buses; money that will be putting people to work getting people to work.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: All together, this recovery plan will save and create over three and a half million American jobs over the next two years. Because of this plan, those who've lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage.

Because of this plan, 95 percent of working Americans will receive a tax break that you will see in our paychecks starting on April 1st.

(APPLAUSE)

And because of this plan, stories like the one we're celebrating here in Columbus will soon take place all across this nation. Today, I'm pleased to announce that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are making available $2 billion in justice assistance grants from the Recovery Act.

To make this announcement, to further glorify himself, he is willing to spend at least ten million dollars. Some may question how he manages to reach that ten million dollar figure, so allow me to try to explain it. Some others have come up with much smaller estimates, but that does not consider the actual costs of the entire retinue. I have not been able to find out details of Obama's security, since 9/11/01 these things have become quite secret. But info on presidents before Bush are more accessible. One of Bill Clinton's C130s crashed in 1996, and the event was covered by the press. His plane, the most expensive executive aircraft in the world, (unless he orders those new helicopters, which will cost even more) is preceded by several planeloads of equipment, limousines, security vehicles, and personnel. Hundreds of military personnel are deployed in addition to his federal secret service protectors. As the link explains,

The C-130 and its crew were a small part of the large military contingent that provides support to the President. Hundreds of military officers perform tasks from feeding the President to handling the ''football,'' the briefcase holding the secret codes for unleashing the nation's nuclear-weapons arsenal.

Among those tasks is hauling the Secret Service's vehicles, which range from family vans to bulletproof limousines, wherever the President needs a motorcade to travel from point to point. That job falls to the Air Force's Air Mobility Command, based at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Ill.

They also have to fly a few of his Sea king helicopters wherever he goes. I'd say that ten million would be a real bargain if that's all this trip cost us. Compared to this extravagance, those Wagyu steaks cost a pittance.

Now, everybody likes a party, and some luxury should be allowed a president. But the president has more than one job, and one of them is the "Daddy" function. If daddy is going to tell us that things are absolutely terrible, he has no idea why, and has hope that it might get better, don't you think he should at least pretend to exhibit a little personal austerity?

That brings us to Obama's narcissism. Bob Johnson at American Thinker wrote a probing piece on Obama's narcissism, proving the point and how it is revealed in the man's actions. While this is all fascinating, it is also frightening to contemplate, when we have a man who is so completely absorbed in his own greater glory, instead of that of the rest of us.

Tony Blankley refers to Obama's posturing as the "height of hubris." Jeffrey Kuhner writes that Obama "is a self-absorbed narcissist who portrays himself as a political messiah -- the anointed one." David Limbaugh writes of the "unspeakably presumptuous extravaganzas as those [that] feted Mr. Obama at Berlin and Invesco Field."

In reference to Obama's narcissism, Charles Krauthammer asks, "[H]as there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?" Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited, writes that "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist," and offers a detailed explanation.

Obama's entire campaign is nothing more than a demand to be recognized as superior without commensurate accomplishments. For individual instances of the undistinguished senator's grandiosity, please see Barack Obama Audacity Watch.

Two other very reliable witnesses to Obama's narcissism are Oprah Winfrey and her guru, Eckhart Tolle, both themselves pathological narcissists. Delusions of grandeur interpersonally connect Obama, Oprah, and her guru. All three believe they can, even that that they must, change the world for the better, and that means garnering for themselves more and more adulation, what the psychologists call "narcissistic supply."

IMHO this is becoming a train wreck presidency in the making. Not since JFK have we had such a narcissist in the White House, but he had a pretty good economic situation to start with, a much smaller government to work with, more experience in everything that makes one either a president or a man, and precious few years in which to destroy things, although he came pretty close at one point. This new guy has breathtaking power, and he is wielding it like a drunken sailor (with my apologies to drunken sailors).

We do not know how this will end. We have no idea what would have happened if we had elected someone else. But the signs are dark, and the future is quite unknown. People are frightened. I certainly am. There is no end in sight.

Geithner Attacks America

Geithner Attacks America

It didn't take long for the tax cheat Treasury Sectretary to attack the very core of our domestic energy industry. Evidently they are very bad for America, since we might have a problem with the climate some day, and it is possible that they may have provided some of the stuff that could possible have caused it. So what do we do? Destroy them. But maybe this is not baby Geithner's fault. After all, his boss is not interested in appointing his staff, since it is so unimportant. This is getting serious.

Comparison Between Respect and Submission

Comparison Between Respect and Submission

There are men who earn the respect of their subordinates, and men who abuse their undeserved authority. Please check out the responses of the Marines to the former, and then their current, Commander in Chief.

Tax Rate Shell Game

Tax Rate Shell Game

These days everybody is talking about how the tax rates used to be 70%, then were dropped to 28%, and now are about to be raised again. But all this talk forgets that we are not comparing apples and oranges. That 70% rate was levied on a much smaller portion of our income.

I am old enough to have paid a rate over 50%. In those days states and cities would never have dared to levy their own income taxes, so federal was the only income tax we had to deal with. The deductions that were available, however, protected just about as much of your income as you wanted. I was audited in 1978 because my net taxable income was only 20% of my gross wages and 1099 income. My accountant asserted the "creature of business" concept, i.e. everything I did was related to my business, so we refiled amended returns and asked for a refund. After a lot of struggle between my accountant and the IRS there was a trivial amount of additional tax to pay, sort of a fig leaf for the tax examiner. I was advised to pay the tax and take it to tax court. The lawyer said I would probably win. I passed and paid a few hundred dollars, and forgot about the whole thing.

So when they say that rates are going up "only on the rich" I always look at deductions that are disappearing. Even though we have very few deductions left, those are being repealed also. This represents an additional tax on all Americans. We are also facing taxes that will be hidden from us, and state and local income and other taxes will be increasing as well. That 95% of Americans who will not see an increase must include Paramecium and bacteria, since even dogs and monkeys will see higher taxes, and they are about to make Chimpanzees illegal altogether.

We need to understand that the new government in this country is attempting to change our society in ways that are, in some respects, broader and more sweeping than anything FDR did, since these new-age democrats seem to have no compunctions about being truthful with the American people. That's not an opinion, it is fact.

Lincoln's Words?

Lincoln's Words?

Another message making the rounds contains some bons mot that are being ascribed to Abraham Lincoln, along with an exhortation to president Obama to take notice of words spoken by his hero. Actually, it seems that these words were actually written by a Presbyterian minister named William J. H. Boetcker in a pamphlet distributed in 1942. No matter, since the words are what they are, and deserve some rumination by their own lights. Truer words have never been spoken, IMHO.

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10 You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.