Pre-Vacation Rantings

Well, forced vacation/time off is right around the corner and fortunately I get to spend a good chunk of that time with friends and family from around the country, so today just a quick hit list of all of the crazy stuff going on.

- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Dem) was asked if he would support a pledge that every member of the House actually READ the health care bill before they vote on it. I mean, what a NOVEL concept! Wait, isn’t that their JOB! The only thing more preposterous than the concept that a pledge like this would have to be proposed is Hoyer’s reaction to it, “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes.” Okay, I understand that the bill will probably approach TWO THOUSAND pages. I also understand and have stated REPEATEDLY that if a bill is too long, then the people are getting hosed by something in it. Wouldn’t you think as a congressman you would want to be looking out for your constituents? Three words: READ THE BILL! Call your congressman and tell them if they vote for a bill they didn’t read, then you won’t be voting for them because they aren’t doing their job!

- “Every dime” of the stimulus was supposed to be tracked on the Recovery.gov website so that the American people could see exactly where their money was going. The idea was that people would be so encouraged by the administration’s openness and effectiveness in turning the economy around that it would change the whole tenor of the country and renew the trust of the people in their government. It’s failed and failed badly. Quite frankly you really can’t see where much of the money is going yet. Only 10% of it has actually gone out despite the urgency in passing the bill and the assertion that these were all “shovel ready” projects. They are even talking about ANOTHER stimulus package, but fortunately there have been some reality checks here, so hopefully THAT won’t happen. However, let me draw your attention to the Recovery.gov website itself. Despite spending millions on the site, it is nearly useless. So, what are we going to do? You guessed it! We are going to shovel more money at it. $18 MILLION MORE!!! Are you kidding me?

*****Update: HotAir.com has the connection between the website contract and... Congressman Hoyer who doesn't like to have to read bills. Classic. Looks like the web company got a thousand to one return on their contributions. Not bad. Don't worry though, when Obama is President all of this pandering, cronyism, and back scratching will be OVER... oh wait.

- According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year is $1.1 TRILLION. Let that sink in for a minute. Federal revenue for the year is estimated to be $1.5 TRILLION. We have already spent 73% MORE MONEY than we will take in for the whole year, and with three more months to go. Do we really want to start talking fiscal responsibility?

- Czars. This “non-cabinet” cabinet post is accountable only to the President. They have no accountability what-so-ever to congress or the people. There are 15 cabinet positions (Secretary of…). There are over 20 Czars and growing all of the time. And they don’t come solo. They have a whole staff. And YOU are paying for each and every one of their salaries. Just think, more and more power being consolidated in one place, further away from the people, further away from accountability. Is that the change we need?

- There is an AMAZING phenomenon that is starting to happen. People are actually starting to tie this hurricane of bad policy to the President. President Obama’s Presidential Approval Index (Percentage Strongly Approving – Percentage Strongly Disapproving) has gone into the negative and today hit -8. 38% of the people now Strongly Disapprove of the job the President is doing. Which really begs the question, “why aren’t the other 62% paying attention?” Actually they probably are paying attention, but they either already work for the government or they think their best job prospects are getting a job working for the administration. Hmmm… I wonder if I could be like the “Snippy Comment Czar”. I like it.

A Liberal Columnist Worth Reading (75%)

Obviously I am a conservative, but I hold to conservative positions because I like to think, reason, learn from history, and rationally approach subjects.

Reading those on the right or the left that do not approach subjects in such a manner usually leaves me with a bit of heartburn. If you are opposed to something you should be able to give a reasonable argument WHY you are opposed to it. Obviously the same is true for something that you favor. Yelling and name calling without facts or reasoning is tedious. That is why there are some radio talk show hosts that I cannot stand to listen to, even though I may agree with their conclusions. I prefer listening to some that I may disagree with every now and then, but they’ve arrived at their conclusions in a reasonable manner.

All that to say, there is one liberal columnist that I enjoy reading. Let me change that, I enjoy reading 75% of her work, even though I may not agree with it. The other 25% is artistic, cultural, and/or moral commentary that I don’t care to hear her views about.

Her name is Camille Paglia.

Politically speaking, she is a thinker. Sometimes she comes to good conclusions (meaning ones I agree with of course) and sometimes she comes to the exact opposite conclusion than I do, but at least she is THINKING about it. Unlike most liberal columnists she doesn’t seek to demonize the opposition and rarely begins her political arguments with the phrase, “I feel”. For instance she is a huge supporter of President Obama, but she has significantly disagreed with some of his positions and speeches.

In any case, her column is always an interesting read. I rarely finish them because the last page or two just doesn’t interest me. Her column today has two pages of very interesting political commentary that give you a great example of what I am talking about. I would strongly advise stopping before the last page.

I would also advise opening another browser window with dictionary.com pulled up. Being a former teacher of a variety of subjects, Ms. Paglia has quite an extensive vocabulary.

Health Care Visualized in Legos

Okay, even I can understand this one. From politicalmath.wordpress.com.

Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas is a self proclaimed liberal. She has been a member of the White House Press Corps since President Adams first moved in... okay, maybe not quite that long, but pretty close. She has been enamored with President Obama and the Democrats. That is why this video is truly shocking.

Deep down somewhere in Helen Thomas she remembers what it means to be a journalist. Robert Gibbs and the Obama Administration seem to be coaxing it out of her... unintentionally of course.



***** Update: I guess Helen Thomas had more to say. You can see all of her remarks here. These are my favorites. I have ... out the more 'colorful' words.

“What the ... do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try."

“It’s blatant. They don’t give a ... if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

South American Politics

South American politics are tricky, in some cases violent, many times corrupt, and almost always difficult to judge without being intimately involved on the ground.

The President of Honduras was forcefully deported from his country on Sunday by the military. Sounds like old school South American politics. Accept in this case the military was acting on orders from the Honduran Supreme Court and with backing from their Congress who appointed a provisional President. Hmm… not so old school South American politics.

On top of that allegations have surfaced regarding President Zelaya’s involvement with drug trafficking, political intimidation, and an attempt to re-write the countries constitution to eliminate term limits for the President. As a socialist leaning president the move appeared to be a power grab at an all out dictatorship. The fact that Zelaya was immediately supported by Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro did not bode well. President Obama also immediately stepped in, echoing Chavez and Castro and demanding that Zelaya be returned to Honduras and reinstated as President.

Hmm…. a military coup is a bad thing, but is that what this is? Or is this a move by the balance of power within the Honduran government to keep their country from going the way of Venezuela? Tough call.

Personally I think this falls into the ‘too soon to make a judgment call’ category.

The question that I have to ask is, why was President Obama so quick to condemn the Honduran government and side with the ousted President?

I would hope he is acting on a plethora of information from our intelligence resources, but is that the same information that Chavez and Castro have? These are leaders that do not typically act in the best interests of democracy, individual rights, or the United States. Why is this situation different?

At the same time I am shaking my head wondering how President Obama can be so quick to condemn this action and stand behind ousted President Zelaya when he was so slow to speak out against the fraudulent Iranian presidential election and support the massive protests by the people of Iran calling out for justice and freedom?

Gagging on Cap-and-Trade

Why is everything so rushed?

The mantra of the “stimulus” bill was that it had to be passed immediately to avoid economic meltdown.

President Obama said that health care reform has to be passed this year.

Now a gargantuan energy tax, designed specifically to HURT taxpayers so that they use LESS energy, is on the house floor getting rammed through with pieces of the bill listed as ‘place holders’ and deals being cut into the bill even while debate is being limited.

Are you kidding me?

The bill is over 1200 pages and there was an amendment filed at 3am this morning that was an additional 300 pages. The bill is yet to reach a truly completed form, but they are seeking to limit debate and push for a vote now.

Just a sanity check here. Congress, on both sides of the aisle, messes things up on a regular basis. Even when they take their time and really look at something it can have adverse effects that were unplanned. What happens when you are talking about a $4 TRILLION dollar hit to the economy, effecting every household in America with a tax in excess of $3 THOUSAND dollars, at a time when the economy is still deep in the trough of a significant recession?

Any representative voting for this piece of junk, based on bad science, defying reason, common sense, and spitting in the face of fiscal responsibility, should just go ahead and withdraw their name from the ballot for the next election.

This is why American’s don’t trust their elected politicians. And for good reason.

*****Update: Rep Boehner from Ohio is going through the late night amendment page by page pulling out all kinds of things that are horrible about this bill. The problem is that he has to stop every page or every other page; everything from requiring small communities to hire full time building inspectors to prohibiting the sale of homes that fail to obtain a predetermined energy score. It also gives the Sec. of Energy full authority to circumvent the rules and bylaws of private agreements and home owners’ associations. Can you say, “power grab?”

***** Double Update: If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged you need to. You’re living it.

***** The vote. Check here to see how your rep voted. The bill passed 219-212. Mine missed the vote. Harry Mitchell and Kirkpatrick from AZ both defected against the Dems and voted NO.

Contempt

I have a healthy respect for our military and rightly so. These people endure pain, every environmental condition known to man, and months or years away from their families as they tackle problems and issues that no one else can.

The Army Corps of Engineers is no exception. These people spend their lives building, fixing and improving infrastructure and waterways to better serve the cities and communities.

That's why this video irritates me so much.



Don't get me wrong, you should address a senator as senator, however, it is really about respect. I heard other audio yesterday of the General addressing other senators and he intermixed senator and sir/ma'am. It was appropriate. It was respectful.

Senator Boxer was not. I certainly hope during the rest of her questioning she respectfully referred to him as General, since he has obviously worked so hard, not for the title, but for the PEOPLE of this country.

The President Did the Right Thing

I just want to go on record here saying that the President absolutely did the right thing and I support his actions in this instance 100%.

So what did he do?

Click here.

Unfortunately for the President, his actions have angered a portion of his base.

One more thing that absolutely needs to be talked about and discussed.

Never mind that North Korea is threatening nuclear war. Don’t pay any attention to the massive election fraud, murder, protests, and screams for reform in Iran. Especially don’t pay attention to the multi-trillion dollar take over of the healthcare industry by the government (estimates now approach $2 TRILLION and they aren’t even finished writing the bill!)

No. No. No. No. No.

Watch the fly. Don’t swat the fly. Keep your eye on the fly…

Inspector Generals

IGs are the watch dogs of government. They don’t make rules, they just watch and report, or at least that is what they are suppose to do.

Sometimes they do it too well and are fired for having the nerve to be impartial and investigate even people who are friends of the president, oooh, the nerve of some people. (This one continues to brew. There will be more coming...)

Unfortunately sometimes it appears that the IGs don’t do their jobs at all.


Do you feel safe now?

Open and accountable government… right.

BIG ISSUES to pay attention to

It seems like you have to check the news every 30 seconds in order to actually keep abreast of what is going on. After three days of virtual isolation, I can say I am blown away.

Iran elected the same puppet it had before, miraculously counting millions of paper ballots in an instant. Shocking. Just remember that Ahmadinehjad is the president because the Ayatollah Khamenei picked him to be president. The Ayatollah is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic and he and the other Imams like Ahmadinehjadbecause he speaks for them. The election was a formality. The unrest that you are seeing right now should be fueled, funded, and guided by the US, but under the current administration I am afraid that we are no more than spectators. Unfortunately the only real outcome of this will be a lot of bloodshed.

North Korea makes threats and we back off. Again, shocking. Don’t worry, I’m sure Kim Jong Il will be so overwhelmed by our passivity that he will lay down his arms and open up free elections across North Korea, expelling his own communist dictatorship… or he may nuke South Korea. Either way our response will be similar and irrelevant.

Given all of that pesky “national security stuff” the real drum that the administration is beating like a dead horse is healthcare reform. The President has asserted over and over that part of the financial crisis we are in revolves around healthcare. While that may be true in individual circumstances, it is laughable on the national scene. Yes, healthcare costs are growing irrationally and in some cases crushing families. Trust me when I say I understand that. However, it did not contribute to the national financial meltdown. Throwing it into the mess is only the excuse the administration is using for pushing huge reforms right now.

According to the Organizing for America email that I received, the President has three goals for healthcare reform, “it must reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure quality care for every American.” These are great goals, none of which are attainable under the plan that administration is backing, but they are great goals.

The first goal is to reduce costs. Sounds great, who doesn’t want lower costs on healthcare? That’s a no brainer. Everybody wants the best healthcare imaginable at the lowest price. The President claims that by pushing electronic records and by using the “group discount” approach to healthcare we will be able to drive down costs. Really? Then why isn’t the government saving all kinds of money on Medicare and Medicaid? Why haven’t they implemented complete electronic records on the systems that they already run? Why haven’t they implemented the cost saving miracles in these programs first? These two programs alone are threatening to crush the budget as the ranks swell with the baby boomers over the next eight years. How will adding literally hundreds of millions more people help the cost?

The second goal is by far my favorite, “guarantee choice”. The President has been fond of saying that if you like your doctor and you like your insurance plan, then you can keep it. Really? Let me give you a clue to how this is going to work. The government is going to set up minimum coverage standards that have to be provided. It will probably include things like dental, vision, and mental health coverage; things that many employers or employees take a pass on right now. Employers will shop the cost through their current systems and will be a little frustrated by the cost increases, but then they will be given their out, the government option. The government will penalize employers who don’t offer coverage at the level that they are mandating. But the cost of the penalty will be less than providing the mandated coverage. Presto! Companies drop their private coverage, pay the government penalty and you are now on the government system! Did you get to keep your program? No. Did your employer at least have the option to go private? Sure, but why would they when it didn’t make fiscal sense? Pretty soon the “government plan” has forced the private insurance companies out of business. Oops… sorry.

The third goal of course is “quality care for every American”. That’s ingenious really. What was the alternative statement, “we want a system with long wait times, limited resources, and denied services?” Please! These are the same people who run the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid now. Do you think they are going to improve when they are flooded by another hundred million subscribers? What they don’t mention are the healthcare related companies that this bill will KILL. How many new drugs do you see coming out of countries that currently have state run healthcare? Is it any coincidence that the new medicines almost exclusively come from US companies? What about companies that provide medical technologies? How are they going to fund research and development when the government is controlling their prices? Why would anyone start a medical related company? Why would a doctor become a specialist? Socialized medicine means long wait times, limited medicines, limited numbers of available services, fewer physicians, less equipment, fewer medical advancements, and ultimately government boards deciding whether or not it is fiscally responsible to provide care for particular ailments. It happens every day in Canada and the UK. Minimal care for most Americans, but QUALITY care for no one.

This is a huge issue. Our Representatives need to hear from us. Our Senators need to be sick of hearing our voices.

Don’t be distracted by Letterman and completely USELESS stuff. Focus on what matters.

This bill will KILL small businesses.

This bill will cost TRILLIONS of dollars.

This bill will cost lives and quality of life for everyone and anyone who has medical issues.

Entertaining Interviews

Kind of strange, but I love it when interviews go bad. Classic stuff.

John Ziegler is a radio show host. He is conservative and had the opportunity to interview Sarah Palin and ask her about comments that David Letterman made on his show. MSNBC being the crack journalism team that they are decided they would interview the guy, who interviewed the girl, that was insulted on national televised late night comedy show… now if that isn’t digging to the heart of the story, I don’t know what is!

Did I mention John Ziegler quite openly HATES MSNBC?

For some reason that did not stop them from inviting him on the show…



This next one is Representative Barney Frank (who I can barely stomach to hear speak). What they are talking about are different measures that Congress and the Administration are considering to limit the pay of ALL executives in publicly traded companies. The funny thing here is that the interviewer refuses to sit back and listen while Representative Frank sets up a straw man argument about the host wanting to “do nothing”. If you aren’t going to play by Barney’s rules, then he’s just going to go home. Just think, this man who can barely put together coherent sentences, has been at the heart of the whole financial meltdown with Fannie and Freddie, now wants to dictate how much corporations can pay their executives.

The NEXT Big Crisis

The next crisis is coming…

I know, you are thinking, “well that stinks because I’m still stuck in the LAST crisis!” Unfortunately the new crisis is only going to exasperate the last crisis.

Sorry.

The new one is oil. OPEC has been lowering their output to try and boost their profit by lowering the supply to just barely meet the demand, which had fallen due to the recession. However, given the lower oil prices and a perceived bottoming out in the economy, demand has increased. China in particular has started to pick back up significantly. Combine increased demand and a falling dollar and you get… higher prices. OPEC couldn’t be more thrilled as oil prices go north of $70 a barrel. The Saudis are talking about increasing output once the price goes above $100 a barrel. You may not be following the oil prices, but I’m positive that you have noticed the gas prices. I paid over $2.50 a gallon this morning and was none too thrilled to do it. At their last peak oil was around $150 a barrel and some are predicting that it will reach $250 a barrel this time. How about $4 gas… maybe $5 or more? That’s a huge chunk of the average family’s pocket book. People will start screaming and complaining. They will start blaming Big Oil for all of their greedy, evil profits.

And that’s when the government will move in to save the day. Well, much like they saved the day on the housing market, the automobile industry, and the credit card companies. You know all of those glorious government programs! That doesn’t mean that they will actually do anything that is going to help you, but they will try and make you feel better because they are doing SOMETHING, regardless of how inept and unhelpful it is.

All the while they will ignore people screaming slogans like, “Drill here! Drill NOW!” They will use platitudes like, “that oil won’t have any effect for five or more years.” Completely ignoring the fact that if they acted even two years ago, we would be less dependent on OPEC TODAY! So think about it, even as we are developing and discovering some incredible new GREEN fuel, we could be tapping into our oil reserves, just in case the next fuel doesn’t hit the market in two, three, or even ten years.

But tapping into our natural reserves would help the problem, and quite frankly, why would they want to do that? After all, Rahm Emanuel will tell you, that you need to take advantage of a crisis, and right now the government “needs” the money. What better way to win favor with the average guy, than to take revenge on the greedy Big Oil companies and slap them with a windfall profit tax? You can say that you are fighting the big corporations for the little guy. You can say you are being fiscally responsible by decreasing deficits (well, short term ones anyway). Or you could say that you are going to take that money and provide funding for new GREEN technologies. Sounds like a winner either way right? The government fights the solution to the problem (expanding supply through drilling) all the while blaming Big Oil, and taxing their profits out the wazzoo in order to fund outrageous and irresponsible spending.

Way to take advantage of the crisis.

Of course eventually the people will wake up and realize that all that is happening is that they are being slapped with a HUGE tax, that gets filtered through the oil companies and finally passed on to the government who takes a penny from the pot and passes that back to the people through different social programs or ‘tax cuts’, and expects the people to love them for it. When they do finally follow the money, maybe they will head to the ballot box and pick the guy talking about lower taxes, smaller government, more drilling, and REAL fiscal discipline.

The next possible time for that is still more than a year away. A lot can happen in a year. Just look at the last five months. During that time the government has seized control of two of the Big Three, nationalized a good chunk of the mortgage industry and a few of the financial institutions, and now is looking to nationalize our healthcare system. Along the way they have borrowed HALF of every dollar they have spent.

Let me look into the crystal ball of my own nightmares and make a rash prediction. Cap and trade will die the way it is right now. It will go quiet and will not see a vote. Six months from now gas will be approaching $4 a gallon and people will be mad. That’s when they will revive cap and trade but as part of the measure they will nationalize the oil companies to “return the resources of the people back to the people”. They won’t use the word “nationalize” they will call it something like “more stringent and responsible government management of our natural resources”, but it will effectively be nationalization.

2010 can’t come fast enough.

The Stimulus Failure - Visualized

I understand things a lot better when I see them. Despite my HUGE ears, I need visuals.

This video does a pretty good job breaking down the failure of the stimulus. I didn't fact check the numbers but they sound ballpark-ish.



HT : Hotair

Climate Change and Skipping Summer

If you are listening to the Liberals pushing the cap and trade bill through the process in Washington, we are teetering on the brink of a Global Warming disaster, with droughts, rising sea levels, and dead animals EVERYWHERE.

Of course if you are in Canada right now you might be praying for global warming as they are experiencing wide spread frost.

AccuWeather ran a story yesterday (that it won’t let me access now without a premium membership) talking about how much of the northern United States and Canada will not really see a summer this year.

Even this week in AZ has been really nice and it’s not often that we can say that in June. Swim classes started for my kids this week and everyone is complaining that the water is cold. Usually it’s 90 (that’s the water in the pool, not outside) by now. If this is global warming, I’m LOVIN’ IT!

If you are looking for some actual science on the subject the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change just released Climate Change Reconsidered. You can purchase the book for $154 (choke) or you can download it for free from their site.

I think you can officially say that the appropriate response to someone freaking out about climate change is to laugh… and then club them over the head with this 800+ page book of scientific evidence. But make sure you put a blanket over their peacefully resting, unconscious body… because evidently it’s cold out.

Everybody needs a laugh sometimes...

Dilbert usually fits the bill.

This one is from yesterday.

The Economy and Jobs

There have been a host of scathing articles on the economy. May job numbers show job losses are continuing to mount, although the rate they are mounting is slowing a bit. The President took the opportunity to claim that 150K jobs have been created or saved and promises a 600K job summer. This just opens up a whole can of worms, 1) the President continues to use the term created or “saved” which is a metric that can’t be measured and was even pointed out by Democrat Max Baucus, 2) will the jobs that are created be useful and permanent jobs or will they be government jobs that are created merely for the purpose of saying that a job has been created.

Here is a list of articles that get into a lot of these convenient numbers and hammer home some hard truths.

- Tough words from the AP blowing wholes in the “accelerated plan” that the administration was touting.
- “Saved jobs” from the WSJ
- The President doesn’t like business, particularly American businesses from the WSJ.
- Three Indiana pension funds have delayed the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Could this force them into liquidation?
- Temporary and part time work mask the real unemployment numbers
- Geithner didn’t really reassure China very much.

Wow... just... wow... Read all the way to the end

I think a lot of us can remember President Reagan's D-Day speech. If you can't, you can listen to it below. Even if you can, you should listen to it again... it's worth it.



President Obama also commemorated the D-Day landing. Here is a good portion, and the best part, of his speech. Listening to the two it lacks a genuinous that President Reagan's had. It's not nearly as moving for sure. But it's a good speech and well delivered.



But I didn't put this post up hear because of either of these speeches, but because of MSNBC's response to President Obama's speech, which aired on Hardball.

Their reaction is... well... horrifying...

Watch for lightning at the MSNBC studios...

Business and Government

Business is crucial. As much as they have been derided and excoriated on every level, businesses are exceedingly important to the economic well being of this and every other country. Don’t make that sound like a trivial thing. A country with a healthy economy has jobs, and people with jobs can feed themselves, take care of their families, and even contribute some of that economic health to other countries through charity.

Healthy businesses are a good thing because they focus on making a profit. And business profit is THE VITAL NUTRIENT to a healthy economic diet.

Government does not focus on profits. They focus on elections. An election to a politician is their future, their career, their public approval, and their priority.

Of all of the multitude of reasons why government should NEVER get involved with managing, owning, or running business, the fact that their focus is elections is probably the most important.

Case in point. GM is being run by the government right now. GM management wanted to relocate their headquarters out of the city of Detroit for a multitude of BUSINESS reasons. The government said… NO. In fact President Obama, who has said repeatedly that he does NOT want to run a car company, called up the mayor of Detroit to tell him that he WOULD NOT LET GM move their headquarters out of the city.

Business decision?

Yes.

Made for business reasons?

No.

But this is just the TIP of the ice berg, and quite the berg it will turn out to be. GM announced several closings with its bankruptcy, including a warehouse in New York, where Representative Charlie Rangel is from. Representative Rangel’s constituents didn’t like that at all, after all, who would? So they called up Representative Rangel, who called the CEO of GM to give him a better idea of the “value” of the warehouse. Wouldn’t you know it… the warehouse will stay open!

Get the picture?

GM went into a much needed bankruptcy; something that would finally let them get out from under UAW contracts and onto an even footing with other successful and even profitable car companies like Honda. There is only one problem with the way they did it. The government is their reorganization financer with $50 BILLION dollars of tax payer money. The UAW invested in President Obama’s campaign because he is favorable toward unions. Yes, I said “invested” because they just saw a “return on their investment”. The bankruptcy negotiations left the UAW contracts for current employees in place. It also left GM saddled with under funded pension funds that will cost them tens of BILLIONS of dollars. These are two MAJOR things that they should have been able to get out of in bankruptcy.

So even after going into bankruptcy, will GM be able to get through the recession and come out profitable on the other side?

How can they when the government is making BUSINESS decisions for POLITICAL reasons?

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. The President has an extensive list of political measures that he would like to fund and he needs money to do it. Specifically, he will need additional tax money from businesses which led him to suggest changing some “tax loopholes” that allowed businesses to reinvest money offshore that was made offshore in order to keep from paying that outrageous 35% tax to bring it back into the US.

So, businesses, making BUSINESS decisions, have announced that if these measures go through, they will have to make the appropriate BUSINESS decision and pull up stakes and go elsewhere. Not little companies with only a few employees, but big companies like, Microsoft.

The problem here is that people don’t think things through. People hear a politician say things like, “I’m going to help families”, “Everyone has a right to healthcare”, “I’m going to punish big businesses that soak up big corporate profits and I’m going to put the money back into the hands of the real owners”, or “Everyone is entitled to a college education.” These all sound real good on their face, but the fact is that the government is not and should NOT be responsible for providing you with healthcare, they should NOT be looking to PUNISH anyone but criminals, they should NOT be responsible for YOUR education, and nobody should be looking to the government to help their family. Freedom does not mean that you get everything for FREE! Freedom means you are free to go out and WORK to provide for your family and determine your OWN educational and economic future. The BEST thing that the government can do is to get out of the way and maintain a fair marketplace with small but effective regulations.

When people start looking to the government for a hand out and to the government as the solution to all of their problems, is when they are working against themselves.

A New Kind of Diplomacy

The President is on another good will tour of the middle east, this is all a part of the position that the President holds that America needs to restore the good will of the world that we squandered since 9/11.

This means that we should deny that America is a Christian nation, but rather make false claims that we are a Muslim nation.

It means that we should applaud the efforts of the Palestinian government that is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas and at least in part and proxy by Iran, while deriding the Israeli government and exerting pressure on them to bow to our desires for how their country should be run. We should embrace our enemies, but hobble our allies.

We should open the doors to Cuba and breathe new life into their economy, essentially propping up the corrupt and crippling government, all the while ignoring the heinous and outrageous violations of human rights that they have been continuously guilty of for over fifty years.

We should embrace Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, even as he does more and more to shut down and silence political dissent, choking out democracy and freedom of speech.

We should open the door for China to be a key player and decision maker in the economic markets of the world, even as they deny the massacre and memory of over two thousand of their own people.

We should ignore the outrageous, dangerous, malicious, and brutal actions of our enemies, but criticize the reasonable moves of our allies. We should prefer favorable relations over promoting human rights.

I don’t understand this kind of diplomacy.

For being a gifted orator, the President seems to be lacking for an appropriate message.

Secretary Geithner's Trip to China

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in China this week, trying to calm the fears and concerns of America’s biggest creditor. China has been making news recently after expressing their concern in the monetary policy of the current administration. They’ve been asking President Obama to stop spending money that we don’t have and for the Fed to stop lending money to the Treasury. Two reasonable requests from a lender who has over a trillion dollars invested in our economic future.

During a question and answer session today, Secretary Geithner tried to reassure the crowd that Chinese investments in American debt are safe and that the administration believes in a strong dollar and will return to fiscal responsibility soon.

They laughed.

Not metaphorically or even to themselves… they laughed out loud.

Evidently the crowd understands economics and monetary policy better than our Treasury Secretary, who went on to detail some things that the administration will pursue moving forward.

Now, our Treasury Secretary is either a liar, a fool, and/or there is something up his sleeve that the government isn’t telling us yet.

Not to be too conspiratorial, but let’s look at what he said.

He promised that the administration would cut fiscal deficits and pursue very disciplined future spending. Hmm… sounds good on its face, but fiscal discipline can come from a couple of different directions. You can either stop spending so much money, or you can suddenly start making a lot more money. For the government this means tax increases. Now don’t get me wrong, the only real tax increase that the administration has pushed through so far was the cigarette tax to increase funding for the drastic expansion in SCHIP. The President has promised to undo a good portion of President Bush’s tax cuts including raising the tax rates on upper income families, reviving the death tax, and cutting numerous tax loop holes for things like charitable giving. But those don’t take effect until 2010 and all of that still won’t fund the deficits that are being predicted, even if you use the rosy estimates for the economy that the Obama Administration has been using. So where would extra income come from.

Well a couple of things have been floating around. The first would be the cap and trade tax plan which would be a huge boost in government revenue in the short term because the government could auction off the carbon credits. FREE MONEY, that would magically disappear from your wallet and show up at the Treasury. The second thing (heaven forbid an ADDITIONAL THING) could be a national sales tax or VAT (value added tax… haha). This could add another 10-20% onto virtually every purchase you make. Obviously this would also be a huge boon to the government and a further kick in the head to the economy.

But both of these things would increase revenue to the government, technically speaking. Of course it wouldn’t last long, because either one of these things would be like a fast ball to the groin of the economy. History tells us over and over that the real way to spur the economy and in the long run INCREASE tax revenue, is actually to cut tax rates and get people moving on their own. Higher taxes and heaven forbid, new taxes, only strangle the economy and very quickly decrease revenues.

Of course, since I went down the conspiracy route, can we really rule this out as a goal? Is the administration seeking a reduction in the economy? I know it sounds crazy and any normal person would scoff at the thought, but normal people would also not be talking about an additional sales tax right now.

Look at something else the Treasury Secretary said, ‘Purchases of U.S. consumers cannot be as dominant a driver of growth [for the Chinese economy] as they have been in the past.” Basically saying that the US won’t be the big buyer of Chinese goods that they have been in the past. Of course the policy that the US is pursuing domestically with higher taxes has been shown to choke off new domestic industry, so… is he saying that the US is just not going to be buying things? The US consumer won’t be ABLE to buy things?

That could be a problem.

Maybe the Chinese were laughing for an entirely different reason…