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.

Welcome to Obamaville

A tent town for the homeless in Colorado has gained some notoriety for its welcome sign. The Obama villagers have claimed that mentioning the name of our esteemed president has increased their visibility, a good thing in their view. However, people outside the village prefer the town to have a smaller profile, and feel the town name misses the mark.

"This economic collapse happened on President Bush's watch!" said one commenter, which is as off base as most anything coming out of the left.

Claiming President Bush was responsible for the market collapse after his repeated petitions to Congress to tighten controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is as off base as the claim that President Bush fell down in his efforts to protect America because the 9/11 attacks occurred in the first few months of his presidency. Though frequently raised by the left, this clunker of a claim ignores the repeated attacks on our embassies, military and citizens that occured during President Clinton's tenure in office, none of which did he respond to in a substanative way.

Perhaps they would have a point about renaming tent town if the name were changed to Dodd City or Frankfurt, but that aint gonna happen from the left side of the world, so we are stuck with Obamaville.

That suits me just fine.

The Andy Griffith Show

Every now and again Sheriff Taylor would leave the Sheriff's office in the capable hands of his ambitious and industrious assistant, Barney Fife, with the usual comedic result: innocent people brow beaten and locked up, bank robbers inadvertently set free, and a huge mess created which Andy invariably would have to clean up, usually with the comment: "Thanks Barne”.

“Nervous traders transferred the focus of their anxieties from the risk of companies failing to the risk of nation states defaulting.”

Traders are now worried that whole nations will default on their loans. That makes for a very unstable and unpredictable economy. Hard to believe this international economic collapse was touched off by people like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank.

You see, these two huckleberries did some thinking. And they thought it would be a great idea for government to be in the banking business. And tell you what, they also thought it their duty as representatives of the people to pressure banks to make loans that the banks ordinarily would not consider. You know, too risky they said. Well Barney fixed all that and next thing you know:

“Shazamme!"

This is what you get when people with little experience and no sense are allowed to monkey with an industry they know nothing about.

Thanks Barne.