Recently the internet was abuzz with a righteous speech (attacking Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s reckless fiscal excesses) by British Parliamentarian Daniel Hannan. Notice how his attack could just as easily have been against our American president:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

                Hannan was righteously and rightfully upset with a UK debt to GDP ratio of roughly 10/1; here in the United States the debt to GDP ratio is roughly 81/1 thanks to Mr. Obama. China, it is true, and other country have willingly bought up American debt instruments in recent years, but now Mr. Bernanke has set the money printing presses a-rolling and multiplied the amount of circulating currency in America fifteen times. Naturally, countries that own our money and our debt instruments are infuriated. 

Even if much of this debt were still to be covered by foreign investors and by Americans saving substantially more than they have done in years, the Treasury would have to find roughly $1 Trillion to finance the remainder of the debt created by congressional actions. China reduced it’s debt holdings of U.S. paper by 3% in June after increasing  their holdings by 52% over all of 2008. China, Russia and Brazil have also suggested that the American dollar be dropped as the international reserve currency.

                Recently the term “banana republic” has been bandied about. In April, 2009, Kit Bond, U.S. Senator from Missouri compared the Obama administration to a banana republic as 35 czars have been created and all manner of favors (to favorites of the administration) are going out but no one has any idea where the bailout money has gone.  One month later N.Y. Times Columnist Paul Krugman referred to the state government of California,the largest state economy in the country and the 9^th largest economy in the world as a banana republic. And twice during the present month (August, 2009) the term has gotten media coverage.

                U.S. Senator Judd Gregg predicted the country would become a banana republic in ten years because popular programs such as “Cash for Clunkers” excite the public fancy but place unfair tax burdens on future generations and on the uninvolved taxpayer of today. Yesterday, Warren Buffet, famous investor, used the term because of the enormous risk of the country losing credibility (not to mention the dollar’s world reserve status) because of the huge deficits being piled up by the U.S. federal government. It seems this description could hold up if present trends continue . . . .

Unserviceable/unsustatainable debt levels and future commitments.

No apparent way to control commodity price hikes sure to hit within the coming year.

Our Federal Reserve Bank seems to be following patterns and practices seen within the German Weimar Republic (which gave rise to Adolf Hitler); Argentina in the late 80’s; and Mexico in the 90’s . . . all countries that suffered unimaginable inflation misery.

There is no incentive to invest venture capital, when at any moment the government bank or government agencies may undercut the whole process.

The supposed wise man needed to set the fool (Obama) straight and salvage everything is Ben Bernanke, oh, didn’t Rajjpuut mention that Brilliant Ben has printed money like it was toilet paper?

Confidence and faith in government is fading fast . . . normally, what happens in a bear market/recession/downturn or what have you . . . things are tough for everybody but some companies are stronger or more versatile or more resilient than others and they are able to “cherrypick” among their weak sisters and buy up assets . . . and these strong companies lead the recovery. With all the government interference we’ve seen, this phenomena has not played out. Normally we also see consumer spending rebound and eventually jobs too. We have so far no such indication of recovery.

The rules are changing to the detriment of the free market and the individual investor. It’s as if you’re playing poker and your opponent yells out, “tie goes to the runner!” and scoops  up all your cash. Your opponent makes himself judge, jury, executioner and you, my friend are screwed. Three examples: 

Obama orchestrated the Chrysler bankruptcy and the GM bankruptcy and violated 232 years of bankruptcy law and precedent and in doing so: severely impoverished three Indiana pension funds which were “secured creditors” in the case and unwarrantedly made the UAW union (an Obama campaign contributor) greatly wealthy.

The Securities Exchange Commission decided to change the rules on short-selling to the detriment or even bankruptcy of investors who’d used that method of investment during the crisis.

Huge profits that legitimate investors made from the bungling and ineptness of companies like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns were denied by the total destruction of the hedge fund industry because of the Credit Default Swaps problem. Rather than let people get their rightful profits, bailouts occurred and rules again were changed. Thus many of the people who would have profited and had money to lead a recovery were screwed by the government.

                On top of these problems, there is the little matter of government propaganda. The original idea of government publications was to inform the tax-paying public what their government was up to. Today virtually 100% of all government reports are self-serving propaganda of the lowest sort. Statistical data is used primarily to lie to the public, but also to benefit the “friends” of the government. Whole volumes have been written on this, here are a few key internet sites:

shadowstats.com

the-tribulation-network.com/denemcgriff/lies.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-filger/are-the-us-governments-st_b_249311.html

            For example there’s the second quarter economic contraction of just 1% we heard about from the government while unbiased statisticians come up with nearly 2%. Well which is it? It’s the independent evaluation of course. The government doesn’t tell you that while tax receipts were falling dramatically, virtually the entire expansive element in the economy was due to federal spending with just printed phony money . . . ah well, banana republic here we come!

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

                Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economics is diametrically-opposed to the 100% tax on all wealth by the state found in Marxism (and presumably “end-cycle Obamaism”). Reagan realized what no liberal seems to understand: all economic benefit comes from creating abundance or put another way: from surplus, storable- wealth or profit. The state, which can only tax this wealth, but which cannot create wealth, risks creating economic problems by each and every interruption in the natural free-market processes. Think of it this way, the wise vintner uses the natural wine-making process with only the most traditional and intelligent of modifications. It’s common sense:  he dares not drain the wine three-times a day or steal the prime grapes to make raisins . . . so it is with our free-markets.

                Ayn Rand’s hero John Galt was the ultimate capitalist and finally as government and society depreciated his vital contributions, there came a time when “Atlas Shrugged,” when all the capitalists walked away and left the rest of society to die of its own bloated accumulated corruptions.   Those who read Rand may have long been fascinated by her philosophies, but what the books really lacked from a literary point of view was a nasty villain. Enter Obama with a suitable Snidely Whiplash snicker . . . .

                Our villain has no understanding of the vital importance of profits. He has repeatedly criticized “obscene” profits and the evils of capitalism. He has via taxes stolen money from the successful capitalists and their laborers and rewarded the unsuccessful. He has, above all, attacked one class of people: the rich. The rich play a vital role in a successful society and its economy. They routinely spend great amounts of their disposable income and account for 14%, roughly one-seventh, of all the consumer spending in the country.  

The poor often lack money to buy necessities. The middle-class find it hard to spend much beyond necessities and a few optional purchases, say 3% of their income. It is the rich who are the driving force of capitalism: in some cases spending 90% or more of their far greater incomes. This is what creates jobs for the rest of us. This is the money that drives venture capital and creates whole new businesses and whole new industries.

These Great Samaritans are the victims the arch-villain and serial economic-destroyer Obama constantly seeks to isolate and eliminate. Of course, as Newsweek so elegantly put it:  “When you slow down the engine, the caboose must slow down also, it cannot go faster.”   So it is: when the rich are attacked, usually it is the poor who suffer the most “collateral damage.” Certainly, if the rich don’t create jobs, that is the greatest “violation” of the poor for the only force that both creates and sustains jobs over the long term is the spending of the rich. So if the rich being Obamacized one year decide to only spend half as much . . . wham, bam the economy contracts by 7%, and . . .  instant recession. By contrast, if the poor should want to lower their spending at all, it’s hard for them to find even one place they can save money: everything is a necessity to them.

It is already the rich who pay most of the taxes, the richest 1% already pay almost thirty cents of every tax dollar collected. If the rich were to decide to become middle-class and earn only half as much, the federal government would collect 22% less in taxes. The cost to the government if the rich decide to “unlax and coast” would be horrendous. And the money that is donated to charities and foundations and hospital wings and kids’ ball parks, etc. that could dry up too. The rich spend money because they can and because they choose to . . . without them the golden goose lays no eggs.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

With “fiends” like Obama Who Needs Enemies? 

Oops, that should have read: “fRiends”

            If Barak Obama was the sworn devout enemy of the United States, its people, its economy and its Constitution he would have never been able to do 1/1,000,0000 as much damage to us then he has in a mere 160 days as our president elected by many people who are saying his actions to date, “haven’t gone for enough.”

            President Ulysses Grant once responded to a question about a troublesome officer out west . . . “I mentally separate my officer corps into the ‘competent and incompetent’ and the ‘industrious and lazy.’ Naturally the highest achievers tend to come from the Industrious-Competents. But surprisingly, some of the very best men are actually ‘lazy but very competent.’ Many times one can even make sterling use of the ‘Lazy-Incompetents,’ but the Industrious-Incompetent is dangerous and must be gotten rid of.”

            A few months later, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull relieved Grant of the necessity of getting rid of that Industrious-Incompetent officer: George Armstrong Custer. Like Custer, Barak, the Beloved, exudes enormous confidence and tremendous energy as he permits his capacity for hard work carry him forward into battle swinging his broadsword and killing the American Dream at every turn. The fact that many liberals claim he “hasn’t gone far enough,” shows quite clearly how divorced the fiscally liberal voter has become from reality.  Not understanding economics, free markets or capitalism they put the torch to the foundations of American Prosperity cheering lustily as they do so.  Sometimes you'll read in the newspaper about people's actions that are so utterly thick-headed they should be considered "criminal-stupidity."  In the case of Barak Obama's actions toward the economy, the correct term seems to be "treasonous-stupidy."

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

The Hiccup Parable

If you explored “hiccups” on the internet, you’d find tens of thousands of old wives’ cures and home remedies claiming to “stop hiccups.” One site I saw listed 250 such treatments. Of course, the very volume of all this speaks to ignorance. If you contract strep throat you go in and get a shot of antibiotics and barring a super-mutant strain of strep on steroids, that ends the problem. Not so with hiccups. 

            I demurred, telling him, not only did I know how to clear up hiccups 100% effectively, but he did too. “Go on,” he said.

            Slyly, I recounted a case he'd told me about twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago.  “How would you treat a socialite who feared that her perspiration was obnoxious and had developed such a phobia of sweating in public that she truly suffered from an easily measurable excessive perspiration?” 

            He laughed, “No-brainer. I've seen a lot of similar cases.  We have her shower but apply no deodorant or anti-perspirant, then wear a sleeveless-backless gown and then she attends the next big function on her scedule.  She is to make every deliberate effort to “stink them all out” and pump out a river of sweat to drown everyone else at the party. When she emerges dry as the Sahara Desert, she’s cured.”

            “Hiccups are the same,” I claimed.

            “Son of a b____!” my learned friend said.

            And so it is.  Hiccups and perspiration, body temperature and chemical balances, pulse and digestion, respiration and salivation, eye blinks and toenail growth are all under the control of the autonomic nervous system. Left alone they are virtually infallible in carrying out their vital jobs well below the level of conscious effort, but try to control them for very long and you can do yourself a world of hurt because it’s “not nice to fool Mother Nature.”   

Despite my constant efforts, after detecting my first “hic,” to break Mr. Osborne’s world record . . . . I rarely get out a second one. When I do, then I pump my fist in the air a few times and yell, “Yes, yes, yes and strive powerfully for a quick string of five hics in a row. To date my personal record is a pathetic six hics in a row lasting perhaps 20 seconds. I am mightily ashamed I tell you. Now, you ask, “What in the world has that story got to do with anything?” What, indeed?

            As I mentioned earlier, hiccups certainly do NOT compare to weightier matters like the health care crisis, galloping socialism, inflation, the rape of the taxpayer, our new president’s interference in the free market, the rape of the taxpayer and the imminent inflation that’s been created, the choice of a shoot-from the hip judge as a Supreme Court nominee, the failure of today’s journalists to upheld their trust by keep the voting public informed through unbiased presentation of the facts of American life, etc., etc. However, perhaps we can apply the humble “Hiccup Parable” to each and everyone of those more serious subjects?

            Perhaps you would NOT be shocked to know that medical doctors here in the United States have occasionally treated “runaway” hiccups for weeks or even months at a time. The lesson that I would draw from that is to “never go where you don’t belong.” The lesson applies equally for doctors treating hiccups and presidents wasting obscene amounts of taxpayer money on bailouts instead of letting normal bankruptcies alleviate matters. What is the end result of the auto bailouts?

Two bankruptcies, in fact, if not in name, and $100 billion in taxpayer funds wasted. What would have been the result without Obamanomics . . . two bankruptcies and not one red cent of taxpayer monies wasted.  On a more humorous personal note, three decades after the original Chrysler bailout, Lee Iacocca, the former Chairman of Chrysler in 1979 who engineered that bailout, just lost much of his pension and benefits with the recent bankruptcy of the the firm.  Talk about poetic justice, it warms the very cockles of my heart and soul.

            Those same “hiccup” doctors, never fail to charge the patients they can’t cure and don’t cure for . . . office visits and examination fees and then, of course if and when nature takes its course and the patient loses the hiccups, would you be surprised if the doctor didn’t take credit for the cure? Doctor Barak is using the “tried and true methods of the New Deal today. The economy under Roosevelt didn’t cure itself until World War II brought an economic boom and all his interferences actually heavily prolonged the stock market panic into three separate stock market crashes. Despite the fact that the figures say the bottom of the Great Depression was mid-July, 1933, 140 days after FDR took office. Roosevelt’s Depression lasted roughly nine years. 

            If perchance, the medicines the doctor’s prescribe for hiccups bring about an adverse reaction . . . unlikely, you say. Ah, well . . . did you know that an American is ten times more likely to enter the hospital for an adverse reaction to prescribed medication than for an automobile accident? He is also four times more likely to die from that very same drug reaction than from injuries in a car crash.   Extending the parable into presidential policies again . . . Doctor Barak is prescribing medications for the country that are 100% likely to bankrupt future generation and debase the American dollar through runaway inflation. As you know, some cures are much worse than the underlying problem they’re prescribed for.