Oh, For Mr. Benny!

Some excerpts from George Stephanopoulos' interview with Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, on ABC News This Week, 29 March 2009. Try not to choke:





STEPHANOPOULOS: But even if we come out of that, a lot of economists worry that this recovery is going to feel like a recession, that we're going to have a jobless recovery. Very -- I see you nodding your head. You believe that?
GEITHNER: I think a lot -- people worry about this. You have a recession like this, which is born out of a period where people borrowed too much, and we let our financial system take on too much risk. The risk in that conduct is you have a longer, slower, more gradual process of adjustment and recovery.



SO...Mr. Geithner admits that our current economic crisis emerged from an excess of liquidity in the market, as I've discussed at length in this space. What he doesn't explain is how that excess of liquidity was started - by the left-wing social engineers on the Hill.




STEPHANOPOULOS: So do Americans have to get used to the idea that the boom times really aren't coming back?
GEITHNER: Well, we're going to emerge out of this stronger. And we're going to do that because the president and the Congress are going to make sure that we have the government doing a better job of things it needs to do.
So we have a more productive economy in the future, better education outcomes, better health care system, better energy policies, stronger infrastructure.

Mr. Geithner tells us that the Federal government is putting the economy in a headlock and that incomes, education, health care and energy will be rationed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Stronger, but as affluent as we were in the past?


GEITHNER: Well, you know, we want to have sustainable growth. We don't have -- we don't want to have a recovery which is going to be artificial and short-lived, just produce the seeds of the next crisis.
We want to have a durable recovery based on a stronger foundation that has a stronger, more productive economy emerging through it where the gains are more broadly shared across the economy as a whole.

Remember how Mr. Obama answered Joe the Plumber's question on that campaign trip in Ohio last October, about how he wanted "to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too…" and "I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody"? Remember how everybody on the Left from Joe Biden on down excoriated Joe for daring to ask such an impudent question? Here's Tim Geithner saying that's exactly what Obama's doing.


STEPHANOPOULOS: So income inequality goes down?
GEITHNER: It should go down. Again, you know, if you look at the record of performance in the '90s, you know, we had very strong productivity growth during a period of fiscal discipline, fiscal responsibility, strong private investment, and the gains were shared much more broadly.
We can do that as a country, but it requires getting this government to do a better job of doing things only governments can do. That's why I assume important we get better outcomes. That's why fixing our health care system and get costs growing more slowly is so important. That's why we need a better energy policy. And that's why infrastructure needs to be improved.

Mr. Geithner assures us that income distribution in the Obama administration will flatten, not from a result of making low- and middle-income people more prosperous but by punishing the hell out of people in upper income levels. He also paints a rosy picture of the 1990's under Bill Clinton, who inherited an economy coming out of recession but raised taxes anyway, who didn't face 9/11, the economic shock it administered, the Global War On Terror and multiple natural disasters simultaneously.

Mr. Geithner also repeats his earlier assurance that the Federal government, invested with ultimate national power, will force us into a centralized, planned economy - the "better outcomes" he mentions.


STEPHANOPOULOS: And you are obviously trying to do that with your plans to shore up the banking system. You laid out what to do about these legacy toxic assets in the banking system this week. And a lot of people are wondering, will it actually work? The stock market definitely seemed to like it, so did a lot of experts. As you know, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman was not a fan. And I want to show what he wrote this week in The New York Times.
He said when he read this plan, it gave him a sense of despair. And he went on to say: "Financial executives literally bet their banks on the belief that there was no housing bubble and the related belief that unprecedented levels of household debt were no problem. They lost that bet and no amount of financial hocus-pocus, for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to, will change that fact."
Financial hocus-pocus.
GEITHNER: George, this is a piece of a series of initiatives we've put in place to help get the financial system doing what it needs to do, which is to provide the credit necessary for recovery. You know, economies depend on financial systems. They're what is -- provide the oxygen, the blood that economies need to grow.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But he says it's just not going to work, that these banks are insolvent, and that even if you put more capital in them, eventually you're going to have to take them over.
GEITHNER: But I just wanted to -- let's step back for a sec. So this is piece of a broad framework of initiatives we're undertaking to help restore the strength of the financial system. Part of our plan -- a core part of our plan involves making sure banks have enough capital to provide the lending we're going to need to get recovery back on track.

Mr. Krugman correctly observes that the home mortgage industry and by extension, the American financial system, trusted the Federal government would not allow a collapse of the housing boom they created and were disastrously wrong. Therefore, it's small wonder why American investors distrust anything Washington tells them now. Mr. Geithner answers Mr. Krugman's criticism by saying the Obama administration's answer to the financial crisis, which he already said was the result of too much credit, too much borrowing in years past...is to spur more borrowing. Is there any wonder why so many people - let alone conservatives like me - think Mr. Geithner is simply a fool? How does dumping more liquidity into the market solve the problem when the market is already drowning in liquidity?


GEITHNER: Absolutely. Our obligation now, again, is to defuse and help unwind this deeply complicated problem that AIG presents. But we want to work with the Congress to put in place stronger tools, stronger resolution authority, so the government can come in more quickly, earlier, before things have passed the point of no return, contain the damage, prevent the fire from spreading, restructure the firm, have it emerge stronger, at less risk to the taxpayer. That's what we need. We should have had this before this crisis, but we didn't. But we need to move quickly now.

Secretary Geithner now says that he wants authority not granted him, the Federal government or anyone under the Constitution, authority to regulate, interfere with and assume control of private institutions. Any private institution. If you weren't scared before, you'd better be scared now.


STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about government debt. A lot of Americans more and more are concerned about that. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 10 years, the government debt will be 82 percent of GDP. And I'm going to read a question that came in from one of our viewers, Bruce Gower of Rock Hill, South Carolina. He asks, "how do you justify printing money out of thin air and the amount of debt you are subjecting future generations to with this budget? Who cares if roads are smoother if I or my children can't afford a car to drive because of the hyperinflation that had taken away all their spending power?"
Are you worried about hyperinflation down the road?
GEITHNER: That's not going to happen in this country, will never happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?
GEITHNER: Will never happen. Because we have a strong, independent Fed, with a clear authority from the Congress to keep inflation low at -- stable at low levels going forward.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Fed has been putting so much money into the system.
GEITHNER: But that's not going to create the risk of hyperinflation in the future.
We have a strong independent Federal Reserve with a very strong mandate from the Congress, and they will do what's necessary to keep inflation low and stable over time.



I dare you to name a more asinine Treasury Secretary among Mr. Geithner's 74 predecessors.
He is presiding over the second half of the $700 billion TRAP package approved last Fall, the $787 billion stimulus package, the $1 trillion bank rescue package and Obama's $3.6 trillion FY2010 Federal budget, yet he says that all this spending - the cure for the excessive spending he already blamed for starting the financial mess, mind you - will never cause inflation. That by itself defies logic, but he explains himself by saying that inflation will be strangled by an aggressive, proactive Federal Reserve who "will do what's necessary to keep inflation low and stable over time." Tell us. Mr. Geithner, how does the Federal Reserve plan to do that? How has the Federal Reserve controlled inflation in the past? By increasing interest rates so high that they discourage borrowing. Now I'm just the product of western Indiana public schools but that's just absurd. He admits the financial crisis was caused by too much borrowing but he and His Serene Loftiness want to stimulate more borrowing and then slam the brakes on borrowing. Who besides an economically illterate buffoon proposes an idiotic scheme like this? Imagine Jimmie Johnson flying down the straightaway at Talladega and rather than slowing down into Turn 1 to maintain control, he jams the accellerator to the floor. As his car screams toward the wall and he realizes he's going too fast, Jimmie then decides to plant both feet on the brakes. What would be the likely result of this scenario? The #48 car and Jimmie Johnson smeared all over the track, the wall, the stands and everything else, that's what. God save us from Tim Geithner and his demagogic boss and give us Jack Benny, because he might have made us laugh but he sure took good care of his money.

P.S.
HSL fired the CEO of General Motors today but didn't fire the head of the UAW. What do they call it when the workers own the means of production?


Source: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=7201898&page=1





Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Business/story?id=7206475&page=1

DaneGeld

A thousand years ago when pillaging was done the old-fashioned way, with swords, fire and slaughter rather than with legislation, it was common practice in northern Europe to pay huge bribes to the marauding tribes of Vikings then terrorizing the continent so they would do their marauding somewhere else - taking their show on the road, so to speak. The first of these bribes was paid by the Franks in 845 to prevent the sack of Paris, the Vikings being bought off with nearly six tons of silver and gold bullion which, if valued to its maximum, would be worth over $180 million by today's standards. That's big money even if your name is Alex Rodriguez and even bigger money if you're a Dark Age pirate intent on plunder, so an idea - and a phrase - was born: DaneGeld. Shakedown money for those lawless brigands of the North so they won't torch your crops and murder everyone in sight and it worked: For the Franks and the Danes.

You see, besides being bloodthirsty ogres, the Danes were smart enough to recognize easy money when they saw it. If they could make a fortune just by threatening violence, they'd settle for making threats. If the threats worked once, they'd probably work again. For example, in 991 after their victory at the Battle of Maddon, they demanded payment of 10,000 lbs. of silver from the English king Aethelred the Unready or they would burn his kingdom to the ground, and on advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Aethelred paid up. The Danes took the silver and left but returned three years later and demanded more as they laid siege to London, and they got it. The cycle was repeated in 1002, 1007, 1012 and 1018, by which time the Danes had extorted nearly 167,000 lbs. of silver from the English people, nearly denuding the island of its valuables. And the practice wasn't limited to the English. The historian Snorri Sturluson reported that Finland and her neighbors paid protection money to the Swedes and that people as far east as Moscow were forced to pay tribute to the rapacious Vikings. Currency blackmailed from their northern European victims was so widespread that more English coins from that period have been found in Sweden than in England itself.

The custom of paying DaneGeld may have spared the subject populations the immediate effects of the Vikings' fury but had widespread and disastrous effects in the longer term, namely:

• The psychological damage caused by being too weak to resist and being forced to pay their enemies not to attack them.
• Rather than improving their own lives, people had to work extremely hard to make their enemies rich.
• As long as DaneGeld had to be paid, a people were kept militarily weak so all their hard work made them no stronger.
• The nobility imposed crushing taxes on the peasants to both pay the DaneGeld and to maintain their lifestyles, sacrificing the common people to a lifetime of backbreaking labor and misery.
• Paying a huge DaneGeld only encouraged the Vikings to demand another.

Even the Vikings who demanded DaneGeld were undermined by the custom. Such fabulous treasure made the reputation of many a warrior but an economy based on extortion was doomed to fail: Having starved their victims of all their gold, the Vikings also starved themselves, condemning Scandinavia to nine centuries of subsistence living.

We are now led by a chieftain no less greedy than those horn-helmeted fiends of the frosty North. His Serene Loftiness Barack Obama, current lord of the skalli at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, demands that the diligent, prosperous workers of America hand over $5.4 trillion for redistribution among his loyal subjects the poor, minorities, illegals, unions and radical environmentalists, the sum consisting of the $787 billion stimulus package, the $1 trillion bank rescue package and his FY2010 Federal budget. This is over and above the $820 billion in rebates and bailouts already approved by the Bush administration which has had zero effect on the economy, but like his Viking predecessors, Mr. Obama gives no thought to the victims of his extortion because taking their money suits his purposes, not theirs. His vision is lofty (hence the title), the radical reshaping of our capitalist, free-enterprise economy into a true socialist model, oriented away from freedom and individual opportunity and toward regulation, entitlement and mediocrity. From somewhere in his past, he is motivated by a resentment of capitalism and its accent on personal drive and achievement, a bitterness flowing from the idea that if his subjects are poor it's because they were cheated, not because they made bad decisions, lacked education, missed opportunities or simply failed. To him, corporations are corrupt and executives are swindlers, and the only way to set things right is to take their profits - stolen from the poor and unfortunate - and give them back to the peasants. Like the Vikings, Obama thinks the fastest way to wealth is to steal from someone else, not help the poor earn more themselves.

Yet his resort to stratospheric levels of taxation and spending will undo him and his class-warfare friends as the DaneGeld undid the Danes, for the same reasons:

• Simply taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don't is not the same as prosperity.
• The people being exploited resent it and will find ways to rebel, hurting themselves and the exploiters.
• The people doing the exploiting will always demand more, not caring that they're crushing the source of their wealth until it's gone.

It would be well for Mr. Obama to hearken to the words of Rudyard Kipling, who said the following about demanding tribute and paying it:

"It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost;For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"

Evil Genius

In the 1973 movie Live and Let Die, James Bond (played by Roger Moore in the first of seven appearances as the British secret agent) investigates the murders of three of his colleagues at the hands of a notorious Harlem drug dealer, Mr. Big. As the plot unfolds, 007 learns that Mr. Big is the alter ego of Dr. Kananga, dictator of a small Caribbean country who plans on distributing two metric tons of heroin across the United States for free. Since Kananga owns the poppy farms that produce the heroin, he could drive his competitors out of business and be left with a monopoly on the drug trade, drowning America with an unending flow of narcotics.

Bond expresses grudging admiration for his adversary's plan. By offering his product for no charge, Kananga undercuts his rivals knowing that by owning the means of production, he can afford the losses he will incur until they were eliminated. Moreover, he creates a nation of addicts with no other source for their drugs and willing to pay whatever price he demanded for their daily fix.

Repeatedly and at great length in this space, I have demonstrated how utterly preposterous President Obama's policies are if we take him at his word; that is, that he wants to help the economy recover. In a market desperately trying to shed costs - the latest Labor Department figures indicate 651,000 jobs lost in February 2009 and 4.4 million lost since the recession started in December 2007 - His Serene Loftiness is dumping $5.3 trillion into the system (the stimulus package, the bank rescue package and his FY 2010 budget) with the prospect of a second stimulus package later this year, at the same time that the Federal Reserve is holding the throttle wide open with a ridiculous 0.25% prime interest rate. By dumping gigantic levels of liquidity into a market already drowning in liquidity while drastically devaluing the currency with runaway inflation, Obama risks sending the free enterprise system into cardiac arrest. Given that the Bush administration's twin attempts to jump-start the economy failed - the $120 billion rebate in Spring 2008 and the $700 billion TRAP package last Fall - why on Earth would Obama try it again only much, much worse?

The answer lies in his objective. HSL's actions only make sense if he is ignoring the health of our economy and is actually trying to restructure American society, hooked on government and beyond rescue. If that is the case, then it doesn't matter if the economy regains its vigor or not. With the supposed mandate of the election behind him, tens of millions of Americans willing, like Esau, to sell the birthright of their freedom for a bowl of stew, Obama will grow the government to colossal levels, consuming everything, controlling everything, choking the life out of the old ways, crushing them out of existence. He spends untold trillions of dollars on pork barrel projects, on pro-union contracts, on health care for the poor and illegal immigrants, to bail out people who should never have been approved for a gasoline card much less a mortgage, knowing that it will be his political opponents who will be stuck with the bill. Free market capitalism will be gone, replaced by a collective mediocrity in which prosperity is punished, health care is rationed, foreclosures and repossessions are forbidden, union membership for every job is compulsory, private property is tightly regulated, the government owns every bank, every credit card company, every insurance agency and every realty, and every child in every school gets straight A's in every class because everyone must excel...meaning nobody will excel. This is Obama's America, a nation of hollow-eyed, nervous junkies queueing up at the clinic door every morning for our fix of government services, trading the liberty purchased with the blood of our ancestors for a welfare check.

If this is Obama's vision - a country of pathetic sameness where equal rights count for less than equal results - then his policies, like Dr. Kananga's free heroin, become brilliantly logical, and we have reason to fear. Instead of a laughably inexperienced minor leaguer, we would be led by a truly evil genius bent on the most monstrous plot ever devised: The undoing of America.

The Emperor Wills It

On 27 January 41 AD, the Roman emperor Caligula was assassinated by his Praetorian Guard as he walked in the passageway between his palace and the Area Palatina. Reigning less than four years, Caligula was a sadistic, insane degenerate, once ordering the Senate to declare him a living god and he even considered appointing his favorite horse, Incitatus, a consul of Rome: His word, however, perverse, was law.





In 1980, Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He collected American luxury cars and vacationed in a private resort on the Black Sea while the life expectancy of the average Russian was less than 63 years and 32% of all deaths were related to alcohol abuse. Paraphrasing George Orwell, Comrade Brezhnev was more equal than others, hypocrisy be damned.





Here in America, His Serene Loftiness Barack Obama, President of the United States and emperor of all he surveys, announced stringent new ethics rules for his administration forbidding the employment of lobbyists then granted himself an exception 24 hours later. After announcing that he had closely consulted with former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich as to his successor in the Senate, he then denied such consultations. While campaigning last year, he bitterly criticized President Bush's deficit spending, then demanded (and signed) a $787 billion stimulus package, approved $1 trillion in new spending for US banks, and submitted a $3.5 trillion Federal budget for FY 2010 which includes a $1.75 trillion deficit by itself. Beyond this, he convened a "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" at the White House on 23 February during which he scolded state governors on the spendthrift culture of American politics. Do as I say, decrees the President, not as I do.

Common sense would label this behavior as bald-faced hypocrisy and in Mr. Obama's case, common sense is supported by empirical facts as the following figures from the Dow Jones Industrial Average attest:

20 January 2008: 11,971.19
04 November 2008 (Election Day): 9625.28
05 November 2008 (day after Election Day): 9139.27
20 January 2009 (Inauguration Day): 7949.09
02 March 2009: 6763.29



The stock market fell 2346 points between 20 January and 04 November 2008 as the economy sagged beneath the weight of massive home mortgage defaults and $820 billion worth of stimulus and bailouts under President Bush's leadership. Yet in response to Barack Obama's election, greeted by the Left and the legacy media with messianic fervor, the DJIA fell another 486 points, then fell another 1190 points by Inauguration Day 2009 and another 1186 points by 02 March, such that the market has declined 2862.09 points or 29.7% between Election Day and the present. That America's premier stock market would fall more than twice as fast in response to Mr. Obama's leadership than it did under Mr. Bush would seem a convincing indictment of his socialist policies, but if his apologists were to complain that his responsibility only began on 20 January, that would still account for a loss of 1186 points or 14.9% of its value since he assumed office, clearly an indication that the free market rejects his big government, tax-and-spend agenda. But is empirical evidence enough to dissuade Mr. Obama from his destructive approach?

History, as I illustrated above, would say no. Demagogues, dictators and egomaniacs cannot face reality when it conflicts with their personal vision. They want to impose their will anytime, on anyone, anywhere, regardless of circumstances or consequences. They seek to validate themselves as powerful, historic, legendary figures capable of epic achievements, bending humanity and nature itself to their will, and Mr. Obama is one of them. His lies, distortions and soaring hypocrisy are to be disregarded: As he spends more money than all the other nations on earth combined, he harangues defense contractors about wasting taxpayer dollars. He promised as a candidate that he would review the budget "line-by-line" to eliminate pork barrel projects but now promises to sign a $410 billion onmibus spending bill with 9000 earmarks, claiming that this is simply "last year's business." He blares his intention to revive the staggering economy while demanding Congressional approval of a cap-in-trade policy that would strangle job creation and growth, without batting an eye. He assays to save an economy drowning in liquidity by drowning it in liquidity, in short, he wants to force the laws of commerce to his will when they have defied every like effort in human history. (Remember Comrade Brezhnev? Mao Tse-Tung? Fidel Castro, anyone?) Arrogant is simply insufficient to describe him.

On 21 April 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered General Felix Steiner of the Waffen SS to attack Russian forces threatening Berlin. Since General Steiner's command existed only on paper, he decided that it would be foolish to try to execute Der Fuhrer's order and the Russian advance went unchecked, but the following day when Hitler learned that a nonexistent unit failed to attack a real Soviet force ten times its size, he flew into a maniacal rage. This is the essence of megalomania, that stark reality can be overcome simply by one's desire: Imperator mos is - the emperor wills it. But as Hitler learned to his cost, will alone often is not enough...take heed, Mr. Obama, take heed.







Source: http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI







Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/feb/22/obamas-spending-plan/







Source: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/2/14/obamas-trillion-dollar-spending-plan.html







Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/23/politics/100days/main4821499.shtml







Source: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?Country=RU&IndicatorID=116







Obama, 23 February 2009 Fiscal Responsibility Summit: "We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences."

Dealing with the Devil

Eleven days ago, the only country on earth who formally recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan agreed to surrender part of its own territory to that despicable group to save its own skin. In response to a wave of violence perpetrated by those black-turbaned thugs, Pakistan has agreed to withdraw its military forces from the Swat River Valley and permit the imposition of Islamic sharia law in exchange for a cease-fire and the promise of relative stability.

From Pakistan's perspective, it looks like a good deal. They're a Muslim country clearly sympathetic to the Taliban and the propagation of fundamentalist Islam, and their military and intelligence services have supported the Taliban materially in the past. The violence stops (at least directly against the government) and the immediate threat against the capital - Islamabad lies only 100 miles to the southeast - is averted.

From the Taliban's perspective, it looks like a better deal. They have intimidated a sovereign government into retreating. They can exercise their brand of medieval cruelty with the freedom they deny others, they can finish the job of ejecting Western tourists from the picturesque valley, they can intensify their attacks against US supply convoys and transform the area into a base from which they can launch attacks against Allied forces in Afghanistan proper.

From the perspective of the ordinary people of the Swat Valley just trying to survive, this agreement represents a nightmare of a deal. Their government has abandoned them to the savagery of the Middle Ages; they have no recourse, no appeal. During the terror offensive cited above, the Taliban kidnapped, tortured and beheaded hundreds of people, attacked and overran military and police installations and directed their greatest fury at education: They blew up 191 schools including 122 just for girls, leaving 62,000 students with nowhere to go. With the Taliban now officially in charge, life for these poor creatures has devolved from miserable to hellish.

From the perspective of the United States, of course, this agreement represents a strategic setback. The situation in Afghanistan has become so serious that even a socialist one-worlder like Barack Obama recognized the need for 17,000 additional troops. However, Highway 55, the major line of communication running from the Karachi seaport through the Khyber Pass and thence to Afghanistan, passes south of the Swat Valley and has been attacked ferociously and often as the Taliban attempt to disrupt Allied operations. With the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the region and the impending closure of the airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan (under heavy pressure from the Russians), deploying those additional troops and supplying them will be extremely difficult. Moreover, it demonstrates the basic schizophrenic nature of our erstwhile Pakistani allies. On the one hand, they granted us access to their country after 9/11 and have at least attempted to throttle Muslim extremists, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success. On the other hand, they allowed Osama bin Laden and his retreating Al Qaeda units to escape through Tora Bora in December 2001, they essentially gave them safe haven in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas by not pressing them too closely and have now ceded control of part of the Northwest Frontier Province to those same savages.

For the Pakistani government to be unable or unwilling to exercise dominance over an area only two hours' drive from Islamabad illustrates how flimsy their resolve actually is, and validates the policy of unannounced Predator airstrikes of the past several months. However, the major point of this agreement is that, if Pakistan thinks that the violence can be stopped or at least contained within the valley of the Swat, if they think the Taliban will be satisfied, they are wrong...dead wrong.

History shows us that negotiating with aggressors buys more aggression. The North resorted to half-measures for 84 years, ensuring a catastrophic Civil War with the South. By betraying Czechoslavakia to Hitler in 1938, the Allies guaranteed World War II in 1939. Ceding control of Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta guaranteed 45 years of confrontation, misery, death and horror during the Cold War. By not finishing off Saddam Hussein when we had the chance in 1991, the US guaranteed his continued brutality and the eventual return of American forces to Iraq. By capitulating to the demands of the Al Qaeda terrorists who bombed the Madrid railway system in 2004, by withdrawing their military from Iraq, the Spanish only guaranteed they would be attacked again. And by the Pakistanis sacrificing the Swat Valley to the Taliban now, they only guarantee a greater and deadlier crisis with the Taliban in the future. As Winston Churchill correctly observed, "An appeaser is someone who feeds a crocodile - hoping the crocodile will eat him last."

Conversation Between Barack Obama and the Little Red Hen

NOTE: This conversation is fictional. President Obama has not yet demonstrated the ability to talk to animals.

THE OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, PRESENT DAY

His Serene Loftiness: Good morning, Ms. Hen. I trust you slept well, that your accomodations were satisfactory?

LRH: Thank you and good morning to you, too, Mr. President, but I'm glad you asked. Maybe I'm being presumptuous but I thought your guests usually stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom or maybe Blair House. Spending the night in a barnyard in Loudoun County was disappointing in the very least.

His Serene Loftiness: I can see your point and I can sympathize, but Rahm thought you'd be more comfortable in a familiar setting. The pomp and protocol of the White House can be a little overwhelming, as I'm sure you understand.

LRH: If you'd have let me judge for myself, I'm sure that I would indeed understand, such as if you'd lent me the use of your limousine for the ride in this morning instead of the back of a poultry truck, but I think we're getting off-track.

His Serene Loftiness: Indeed we are. Let's proceed to the substance of our meeting, shall we?

LRH: By all means.

His Serene Loftiness: Very well. Now, Ms. Hen, you know from my background that I have nothing but the greatest respect for single mothers and the challenges you handle every day but we're facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and we all have to move out of our comfort zones if we're going to pull out of this, agreed?

LRH: So far, so good, Mr. President.

His Serene Loftiness: Great, great. Well, here's the thing, Ms. Hen: I'm very concerned about this situation involving the wheat and the bread and the way you handled it. From the reports I've received, it sounds like you behaved in a very selfish, profit-seeking, elitist manner toward Mr. Dog, Mr. Cat and Mr. Duck and we have to change that if we're going to move this country forward.

LRH: You're kidding. That's why you asked me to come here, because those lazy good-for-nothings ratted me out? Because I didn't share my hard-earned bread with three goldbricks? I can't believe this!

His Serene Loftiness: Ms. Hen, I'm going to have to ask you to control yourself while you're in the White House. Characterizing your neighbors in such an insulting manner doesn't move the process forward and you can't possibly know everything about their situation, how they got to where they are. Judging them so harshly doesn't help.

LRH: But didn't your Attorney General just call us a "nation of cowards"? How is that not being judgmental? Sounds hypocritical for you to accuse me of something Eric Holder just did.

His Serene Loftiness (glaring): Ms. Hen, Eric Holder is a friend of mine, he is a brilliant, accomplished legal mind and this administration is extremely lucky to have him serving in such an important post. On judicial matters, he speaks for me and I'll remind you that I won the election last November, not Senator McCain, I get to set this country's agenda and I get to say who's judgmental and who's not! Now as I was saying, your behavior toward Dog, Cat and Duck is disturbing in that you refused to help them when you had the chance, and as the American people have given me a mandate to change the culture of greed and corruption that has pervaded our country for decades, I wanted to persuade you to change your attitude so we can all move this great nation forward into the future. Will you get on board? Can I count on your support?

LRH: Mr. President, I want to make sure that we both understand exactly what happened before we "move forward," as you put it. And another thing: I may live with a bunch of cackling hens but that doesn't mean that you have the right to disrespect me. I won't have it.

I was scratching for food in a wheat field some time ago - I am, after all, a chicken - when I found some grains of wheat and thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had some bread for a change?" It may strike you as odd that I have any preferences about my diet or that I even know what bread is, but that's all beside the point. The point is that at each step in the process - planting, harvesting, milling and baking - I asked Dog, Cat and Duck if they would help me and they all refused, leaving me to do all the work. So when the bread was ready to eat, I thought it was only fair that I keep it for myself and my chicks. After all, I have to think about them, don't I? At any rate, that's what happened and I dare anyone to gainsay any of what I've said.

His Serene Loftiness: Not at all, madam, not at all; in fact, the reports I mentioned earlier dovetail exactly with the account you just related, leading me to this conclusion: That you are indeed the sort of stingy, profiteering, me-first sort of individual that my administration has dedicated itself to reform. You could've helped three of your neighbors who were reaching out to you and deliberately ignored their desperate cries, displaying a shocking lack of sensitivity and compassion in these difficult times. It is therefore my order that your bakery operation be immediately placed under the supervision of the Federal government as part of my overall stimulus plan for the economy, to wit: Every loaf of bread you bake from this point onward be shared equally between yourself and Messrs. Dog, Cat and Duck to ensure that nobody goes hungry, to spread some of that wealth around as the saying goes, to ensure that nobody gets left behind. That is my order, Ms. Hen, and I hope you understand that it is only issued in the best interest of the country.

LRH: I'm trying to understand what just happened. Are you saying that because I refused to subsidize my deadbeat neighbors just one time, that I have to bake for them indefinitely? What kind of stimulus is that? They get fed whether they work or not while I get to slave for them? What sort of incentive is that for me to keep working, when 75% of what I produce goes to feed three sluggards? I doubt you've thought your plan through, Mr. President, because that's its Achilles heel. You call me into your office to criticize and berate me for refusing to share what I earned with others who refused to lend a hand, and order me to essentially work for them rather than myself. But what would happen if I changed my mind and became as they are, a lazy, demanding, selfish lounger? What if I complained loudly that I was hungry and nobody was working hard in the hot sun to feed me? What if everyone changed their minds, Mr. President? What if all the hard-working, diligent, responsible people of America decided not to be suckers and play your stupid game? Who would support the deadbeats then? How could your stimulus plan overcome that?

His Serene Loftiness: Uhh...I have to admit I didn't see that one coming. That could be a problem.

The Dog Who Doesn't Bark

In the short story Silver Blaze, literature's most famous detective investigates the disappearance of a prize racehorse and an apparent murder in the Dartmoor region of Devonshire in southwest England. During this investigation, Sherlock Holmes learns that the animal was led out of his stall in the middle of the night and that the stable hand charged with guarding the thoroughbred had been drugged senseless. Nonetheless, there was a dog nearby that should have raised an alarm if any suspicious characters were lurking around, whether the stable boy was conscious or not. Had the dog also been drugged or otherwise silenced? This question led to one of fiction's greatest exchanges:





Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"



Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."



Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."



Holmes: "That was the curious incident."





The dog didn't bark because he recognized the man leading Silver Blaze out of the stable as John Straker, the horse's trainer. Mr. Straker was a bigamist whose second wife had very expensive tastes, and he intended to injure the animal so as to fix a major race for gamblers. He drugged the stable hand so he could lead the animal out into the dark unobserved, but unfortunately for him, the horse panicked and killed him accidentally, solving the suspected murder.





His Serene Loftiness has repeatedly and forcefully urged Congress and the American people to support the now-$789 billion spending bill presented for his signature. He has stated clearly that the economic crisis now upon us is the worst since the Great Depression and that the only remedy is massive government intervention paralleled on President Roosevelt's New Deal. The upheaval in the banking industry, predicated on the upheaval in the housing market, seems to validate the President's claim and unemployment stands at 7.6%, double the figure from April 2000 and the worst level since September 1992. But inflation barely registers at 0.09% (as of December 2008) and the Federal Reserve's prime lending rate stands at a miniscule 0.25%. Are these really the worst economic conditions we've faced in seventy-five years?





When Ronald Reagan assumed the Presidency in January 1981, the country was enduring a "double-dip" recession; that is, we had recovered from the recession that began in 1978 under President Carter and plunged into another. Unemployment stood at 7.5% and would peak at 10.8% in December 1982. Inflation, which had jumped as high as 14% under President Carter, was a still-dangerous 9.2%. The Federal Reserve, in an attempt to throttle said inflation, had increased the prime lending rate to an astonishing 21%, making credit extremely expensive even when it could be had. President Reagan's answer to this triple threat to the economy was to cut taxes, first in 1982 and again in 1986. By the time he left office in January 1989, the prime lending rate had settled to 10.5 % as inflation had been cut to an annual rate of 5.4%, and unemployment had also dropped to 5.4% as nearly twenty million jobs had been created. The effects of President Reagan's tax cuts and the Federal Reserve's tight control of money markets was to allow wage earners to keep more of their own money, that money held more of its value, jobs were created and prosperity returned across the board - the percentage of husbands of poor families working low-income jobs dropped 13.7% between 1979 and 1990.





Like the dog that didn't bark, the choicest clue is often the one we don't hear. It seems evident from the historical record that President Obama is simply lying when he omits this period of economic difficulty and recovery when he appeals for his "stimulus package." Why would he do so? Because to mention it would undercut the urgency, the absolute necessity of such colossal spending, as well as the purpose. If we have overcome worse economic troubles than what we currently face with different methods, and those methods succeeded wonderfully, it would seem logical to use those methods again, except that Mr. Obama is philosophically opposed to them. Cutting taxes is not what he's about, not what his liberal allies are about, and he will ignore the lessons of our own recent history and imperil us all rather than admit that a conservative principle is correct.

Similarly, while Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi and all the other usual suspects rail against the unbridled greed and arrogance and corruption on Wall Street, and grandstand on TV, raking corporate CEO's across the coals in Congressional hearings, you hear not a word about investigating Congress' role in launching the housing market crash. As discussed in earlier postings here, liberal Democrats decided to ingratiate themselves to their constituents in the 1990's by changing the laws to help bad credit risks obtain home mortgages, bullying HUD and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and everyone else with a dollar to lend to lend it to their cronies. As late as 14 July 2008, Rep. Frank stated, "I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They're in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we're going to do some things that are going to improve them."

Of course, the Federal government seized control of both lending giants less than three months later after they lost about 80% of their value in nine months, costing taxpayers about $11 billion and sending shockwaves throughout the financial markets. But will someone, anyone, vigorously pursue Mr. Frank's responsibility for causing the financial panic, and the responsibility of his social engineering friends on the Hill? No. No, we will not. Doing so would bring the guilt and shame of this mess to their doorstep, so we will not see it. So as President Obama glories in this first legislative victory, pay attention, as Baker Street's most illustrious resident did, to what is not said, to what is not heard, to the dog who doesn't bark.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432501,00.html

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/treasury-set-bail-out-fannie/story.aspx?guid=%7B46D1439E-A2C4-418C-9BE0-09BE0B9EE60D%7D&dist=msr_7


Source: http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Annual_Inflation/annual_inflation_chart.htm





Source: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/ratewatch/leading-rates.asp





Source: http://www.bls.gov/CPS/





Source: The Real Reagan Record, National Review, August 31, 1992