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Friday, January 27, 2012

The Age of Brass

Irked at the prevalence of unqualified opinion, Thomas Sowell points out the president is a prince in a brass kingdom:
No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future? Why would people who have spent their careers in politics know more about investing than people who have spent their careers as investors?
Why indeed.

He goes on to point out the general wool pulling that politicians do as a matter of routine:
Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools. Easily observed direct subsidies can create a political problem. Far better to set up an arrangement that will allow government-sponsored enterprises — whether the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Tennessee Valley Authority — to operate in such a way that they can claim to be self-supporting and not costing the taxpayers anything, no matter how much indirect subsidy they get.

As just one example, the Postal Service has a multi-billion dollar line of credit at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hey, we could all use a few billions, every now and then, to get us over the rough spots. But we are not the Postal Service. Theoretically, the Postal Service is going to pay it all back some day, and that theoretical possibility keeps it from being called a direct subsidy.
No doubt about it, we have been failed by our politicians, who think nothing of lying to us and robbing the treasury.

The upcoming elections are of truly historic import. We live our lives on the brink, with our children's posterity in the balance. I would that they would grow up free. If won, the electoral battles of the 2012 elections will not mean the country is saved, but failing to win them in all likelihood will mean the country is lost.

4 comments:

  1. We know Barack's vision of the future--we've seen in in all the post-Apocalyptic movies that Hollywood liberals love to put out. All of the socialists have all of the answers. They think them up sitting in those sidewalk cafés drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and contemplating suicide. That's why they can take a twenty-something that never had a real job and put him in charge of GM when the government first took it over. And he was the only one in the group of ten finalists being considered for the job that ever owned a car. He had all the answers, too, right out of the gate--shut down Saturn, blah-blah-blah. He must have been checking the Democrat Underground comments waiting to take the stage.

    All of Barack's green dream businesses have turned to shit--Solyndra and the couple dozen
    clones we are only hearing about one short article at a time. If these were different times, we already have King-Midas-type legends about the man to warn our kids with at bedtime.

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  2. There is an electric car battery company that was much ballyhooed, with the Joe Biden visit and the speech about technolgy of the future, how this administration is guiding our nation into the future. Just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. I believe Joe was right - they are guiding us into our future. It's just that our future doesn't look too bright.

    "No one has more brass than the President of the United States"

    I've gotta say, I love the way Thomas Sowell just says things without equivocation. There are too few that are willing to just call it as it is. The president is a bald faced liar with a lot of brass to him.

    Damn straight.

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  3. It's pretty crazy that we live in a time where so many feel our country is a breath from falling over the cliff -- and they may well be right.

    It's mind-boggling that we're to this point, really.

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  4. As one frog to another, the water in here is getting pretty warm!

    Thanks for stopping in, E.

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