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.

Letterman throws like a girl who doesn't know how to throw

With the recent scrutiny of Sarah Palin and her book tour, her following exchange with late night comedian David Letterman comes to mind:

“Effectively accusing David Letterman of being a dirty old man, Sarah Palin yesterday ripped the CBS late night host for making crude jokes about her 14-year-old daughter”

In a written response, Palin was quoted as saying:

"Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter: 'Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands - that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.”

I would phrase that a direct, well worded and penetrating statement. Some might phrase it a common sense statement which a husband and a father would not need reminding of. But I digress.

Letterman responded:

"I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record."

Well, the young woman accompanying Ms. Palin at the game Dave referenced was, in fact, none other than her fourteen year old daughter, Willow. Perhaps we should have taken him up on his offer right then and there.

Four months later, the extortion plot against Mr. Letterman was brought to light, and the joke was suddenly on Dave. The laughter became rather awkward now. It also brought opportunity to examine the record he spoke of. Subsequently, it was learned that Mr. Letterman had engaged in sex with quite a number of people, all involved with his show, and shall we say, under Mr. Letterman in one way or another. Reports of an extortion plot brought a bit of irony to his earlier statement, and resulted in Mr. Letterman arriving at a new found insight, as seen here:

"My response to that is, yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would," he explained on the show. "I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family."

and here:

“I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family," he said. "I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done."

The list of sexual partners did not include Biff Henderson or Larry "Bud" Melman.

Ted Casablanca, the E! Online columnist added this valuable insight:

"He's a rebel, but even rebels have to treat women kindly. You just get the sense that he is so cavalier about it, that he thinks this is OK because it's him."

Regarding Regina Lasko, Letterman's wife, Casablanca had the following to say:

"Absolutely [Lasko] knew. You don't get in bed with Letterman in any sense, romantically or professionally, without knowing it's going to be a different set of rules."

In light of the response to the Polanski case, it appears that is a widely held attitude among the elites of the arts and entertainment crowd, making Ms. Palin's quote listed above ...

right on the money.