Letterman Taught Lesson in Obamonomics

This blog's favorite object of derision, the feckless David Letterman, was surprised to find himself on the receiving end of some very useful economic information. It came from an unlikely source when his guest, NBC's Brian Williams came on and was asked to comment on yesterdays wild market swing, where the market lost a trillion dollars worth of value over a matter of a few minutes, later regaining much of its value later in the day. On Dave's invitation, Mr. Williams began to hold forth on the major ills that plague our current economic situation, namely America’s unsustainable entitlement programs and bloated public employee pensions, which promise to put us on the path to the sort of fiscal crisis we are seeing in Greece, Spain and Portugal today. A stock market drop of one thousand points in fifteen minutes is a scary thing, and Mr. Williams commented that watching it gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sense that the world was falling apart right underneath his feet, much as he felt when he watched three thousand people killed in the jihadist attacks of 9/11.

Williams noted the reports that attributed the afternoon free-fall to a trader error and programed trading, but correctly added that these still were a harbinger of market volatility. Williams noted that traders were influenced by violent rioting over in Greece over that country’s debt crisis, and that similar crises may occur in Spain and Portugal, spreading through the rest of Europe. And an economic crisis in Europe would lead to an economic crisis in America.

“the dirty little secret is: the world has no money and the emperor has no clothes.”

Let me spell that out for you Dave, in case the stage girls were a little distracting tonight. We don't have any money. We've spent it all. We've spent tomorrows money as well. It's gone.

Now, where exactly does that leave us?

The government has to either stop spending increases, or attempt to increase the Federal coffers. Increasing Federal funds can be accomplished in a couple of different ways. The conservative approach is to decrease taxes on income and capital expenditures to stimulate the economy and encourage economic growth. Higher economic activity will translate to higher tax revenue being generated.

Sadly, though it has a uniformly successful track record, that method is never considered by knuckle-heads like Tim Geitner or Barrack Obama. No, the Obamonomics approach is to tax the hell out of everything under the sun. He also would like to spread it around a little, and he is thinking you're being stingy if you are not all good with that. His other ace is to simply print more money, and I got to admit, the Federal mint is the only entity that can potentially keep up with this clown. Unfortunately, the effort would ruin the country as inflation would be driven to 15 to 20 percent.

As Margaret Thatcher shrewdly once said “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

True enough, and the trouble is, with the Obamonomics spending spree and political slush funding, that very day is fast approaching.

Michigan Hutaree Militia Ordered Released, Federal Case Appears Thin

We discussed the rather odd Federal round up of a group of US citizens who were members of a militia group in my previous post here. Well, the case has been working its way through the system, and it would appear the prosecution is rather lean in the way of incriminating evidence. Citing that, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts ordered the militiamen released from prison.

"Defendants are presumed innocent of all charges against them. ... This presumption of innocence is part and parcel of why, 'In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception,'" Roberts wrote, quoting a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Prosecutors claim the suspects are too dangerous to be released from jail.

"The defendants must be released," the judge said Wednesday at the end of an eight-page decision.

On Monday, Roberts said it was "offensive and hate-filled speech" but it did not signal a conspiracy to levy war against the government.

Since a series of raids and arrests in late March, Hutaree members have been portrayed by the government as homegrown extremists out to strike at authorities. But evidence offered during the detention hearing pointed to no specific plot.

"The government's position that the defendants sought to acquire explosive devices is weakened by the evidence that the agents found no explosive devices when defendants were arrested," the judge said.

A rather entertaining take is offered over at Carol's Closet

One assumes that if the Hutaree "may have been planning something" that they also may not of have been planning something. If this is the best that the government can do I have to wonder why these people were picked up to begin with. After all, talking smack isn’t typically illegal.

Could it be that this whole little manuver was the government exercising politics rather than protecting the public?

AP At A Loss As To Motive of NY Car Bomber

The banner headline reads:

"NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery"

and these folks are not embarrassed to place that in a place where people can read it? Am I the only person surprised they left out the word "alleged"? The suspension of disbelief is incredible.

"Until recently, his life in the U.S. appeared enviable. He had a master's degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, a job as a budget analyst for a marketing firm in Norwalk, Conn., two children and a well-educated wife who posted his smiling picture and lovingly called him "my everything" on a social networking website. But shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago, he gave up his job, stopped paying his mortgage and told a real estate agent to let the bank take the house because he was returning to Pakistan."

That seems troubling.

"Once there, according to investigators, he traveled to the lawless Waziristan region and learned bomb making at a terrorist training camp."

How strange. I wonder why he would do that?

AP... forsooth!

Obama Delay Obscured By Gibbs

Roger Gibbs used the White House Press room as the perfect place to bushwack the US public over the delay in responding to the BP oil rig leak in the Gulf of Mexico. He did so by attacking the Fox news reporter present and claiming that there was no way any factual statement that he offered would reverse the claim made on Fox by former FEMA Director Michael Brown that the Obama adminsitrtion had instigated the oil rig leak.

Of course, Mr. Brown never claimed that the Obama administration was responsible for the oil rig leak. He claimed that the disaster itself was to the liking of the Obama administration, and that the administration were likely to find it useful. Now surely that should not be a surprising line of thought, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is renown for his quip


“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste — and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”


which he offered forth at the start of the financial market crisis in 2008.

But I have to admire the audacity of Gibbs, by singling out his only enemy in the room, taking the right on the money comments of Mr. Brown and twisting them to suggest that he had claimed on Fox that the White House had instigated the oil platform accident, suggesting that Fox news did not challenge this assertion, and moving the focus of the story away from the possibly politically motivated tardiness in the administrations response.

Well, Gibbs is right in that Fox interviewer Neil Cavuto did not challenge that particular assertion. That, of course, is because Mr. Brown never made that assertion.

The rig is pumping out two hundred thousand gallons of oil into the bay a day, and its nine days before the Environmental Protection Agency thinks its an issue worth thinking about, and the story from Mr. Gibbs is that Fox is not fair in their reporting.

Hmm.

Obama Proud to Have His Boot on Throat of Another Private Sector Enterprise

Well it's a familiar refrain for the Obama presidency. Wait for a problem to develop, delay action until the problem has multiplied and then use the excuse of a crisis to extend Federal authority and cause another private industry to buckle under the wait of the US government. The clumsy hands of the bureaucrats in Washington DC have demonstrated their ability to muck up the works, and so it is with considerable consternation that we here them pledging more of the same:

"the administration has embraced the violent imagery of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who said administration officials would keep their "boot on the throat" of the energy giant"

It is not responsible private industries like BP that we need be protected from. Rather it is the ever further grasping on the part of Washington that threatens us most of all.

Pundit of course always has an interesting take:

When husband Pundit saw the Gibbs clip last night, he was frankly astounded:

"Who talks that way, besides thugs?"

Bingo.


Roger, tell Barry to get his damn boot off BP, help them up off the ground and get his butt in gear helping to fix the problem at the rig and its clean-up.

Endless posing for the crowd doesn't cut it.

Obama Commencement Speech Displays Failure to Comprehend Founding Documents

One would hope that the man that has risen to head this great nation, the beacon of freedom for the world, would have a rudimentary understanding of the nation's history and the significance of its founding documents. In the case of Barrack Obama, Ivy league educated and law degree not withstanding, one's hopes fail.

After recently deriding the people of the entire state of Arizona, the president dashed off to Michigan to sell the massive programs that have crushed the nation in debt. First up the president minimized concerns over his trillion dollar expenditures by saying that debates about the size and role of government are as old as the republic itself. It wasn't at first clear if this was intended as a laugh line.

"But what troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad," said Obama, who received an honorary doctor of laws degree. "When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

Holy cripes! What does this guy think the American revolution was about? What was worth risking life and fortune over? Though they largely considered themselves to be English gentlemen, the colonists found English rule unbearable. Why was that so, and what was it the young republic was set up to keep in check? Why the separation of powers? Why the Bill of Rights? Did any of that come up in the education of one Barrack Hussein Obama? Well, the president has answered that question in resounding fashion, and the answer is...No.





"Government, he said, is the roads we drive on and the speed limits that keep us safe. It's the men and women in the military, the inspectors in our mines, the pioneering researchers in public universities."



It is also the IRS, the massive bureaucracies, the incredible inefficiencies, the inside dealing, the corruption, and of course, the prisons, all of which stink worse than Barney Frank's basement apartment.

The financial meltdown dramatically showed the dangers of too little government, he said, "when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our entire economy."

Exactly wrong, professor. What financial melt down would have occurred if it were not for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

None.

What melt down would have occurred if the federal government had not pushed unsafe lending practices under President Clinton and pushed further by the hapless Barney Frank and the greedy Christopher Dodd?

None.

The world economy owes the entire financial crisis that we are currently dealing with to the corrupt practices of liberals in governmental positions of power.

"Throwing around phrases like 'socialists' and 'Soviet-style takeover,"fascists' and 'right-wing nut' - that may grab headlines," he said. But it also "closes the door to the possibility of compromise..."

Is this guy for real? What the hell has he been saying the past week about the people of Arizona?

"At its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response."

A president of the people?

"Your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship"

When has he ever done that? Where can he point? What, his cut off remark to republicans "We won"?

Anyways, sanity could be found just a few miles down the road, where forty-five minutes away Sarah Palin was speaking at an audience sponsored by the anti-tax Americans for Prosperity Foundation. She stated unequivocally that President Obama was overreaching:

"The fundamental transformation of America is not what we all bargained for"

Well... exactly.

Washington Post Makes Gaff

I try to get over to Bob Parks entertaining Black and Right as often as I can. I really do try. But somehow this post on what Bob likes to term his 'Bonehead of the Day' got past me...and my...oh my...it's a doosey!

The Washington Post, the DC liberal flagship, home to such investigative journalistic greats from the past as Woodward and Bernstein, well, for a liberal they made a boner, a gaff, a fumble of epic proportions.

Good Lord!