Blazing Arogance

doesn't even cover it.

Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down on Friday by Steven Rattner, the investment banker picked last month by the administration to lead the Treasury Department's auto-industry task force. Mr. Rattner broke the news to Mr. Wagoner in person at his office at the Treasury, according to an administration official. Afterward, Mr. Rattner met one-on-one with Mr. Henderson, who will fill in as GM's CEO."

I'll be back on this.

But friends, remember this. Remember this for a long, long time. Remember this to the ballot box in the coming years, as the democrats are moving farther forward in a fascist agenda.

Scathing Rebuttal of Obama/Brown Economic policy

Daniel Hannah tells it like it is to Gordon Brown and the absurd spending plans now being passed.

" Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidised, where you have not nationalised outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words? Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country?

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging; in other words – to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line under the accumulated weight of your debt We are now running a deficit that touches 10% of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary; countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year - in the last twelve months – a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost and yet you created thirty thousand public sector jobs.

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm’, I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so; the European Commission has said so; the markets have said so – which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government."

March of Fascism

Washington Post: "The administration's proposal contains two pieces.
First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy.

The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed's other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.

The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.
Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake.

Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG's most troubled unit.
The Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board, according to the plan. "

The arrogance of power being displayed by the treasury department over the past decade is astounding. After repeated failures and increases in the federal expenditures of Olympian proportions, this department and this administration pursues even more power. Power truly has corrupted. 10 people would be able to create a seizure.
(1 Tres. Sec + 1 POTUS + 8 Fed. Rsv. Members)

The end result of this proposal would be disastrous. Where Eisenhower warned of the rise of the Military-Industrial complex, this would be an order of magnitude worse. Creation of a Federal-Industrial complex is little different from that of a centrally planned economy, which has been shown time after time to be a dismal failure, lashing the freedom of man to the will of the state, fermenting a toxic brew of equal poverty floundering in corruption and brutality.

Free corporations are free. They are not to be owned by the nation, but to serve the people in a market that thrives on competition. When the real and legitimate threat of federal take over exists, it only exacerbates the hostile business climate that Washington DC seems so intent on creating. When a climate is hostile, business move. An example of unyielding weight can be found in the States of America, most obviously California. Those seeking success will find else where to operate.

It is obscene, literally obscene that any United States President would consider it a right and proper action to seize control of corporations for 'the public good'. When the negative incentive of failure is removed, there is no reason to avoid drastic risk. When these risks perpetuate more failures, the government will comply and again seize and nationalize even more corporations. This only leads to more risks which will necessitate even more nationalizations, as a vicious, snarling tornado of nationalization and free market destruction ensues.

I can find no other explanation for this variety of economic policy other then an intentional attempt at irrevocable damage to the freedoms the United States were based on. As the lackeys in Washington applaud, the liberty of our fathers vanishes before the very eyes of a apathetic public.

The giants upon whose shoulders we stand are in very real danger of being knee capped by the neo-fascist policies of Obama and his rotating pack of liberal wolves.

World Baseball Classic

Those of you old timers know I love watching baseball. So this year, I had a blast following the World Baseball Classic, which is essentially the World Cup Soccer for baseball, except the USA team is actually pretty good.

USA was knocked out quite handily in semifinal round.
Last night, Japan continued to win the championship, besting South Korea 5-3 in Los Angeles.

The game was over at 1am after the 10th inning, and it was a spectacular finish. Worthy of the somewhat presumptuous title 'Classic'.

The strangest thing was at the end of the game, when all the Japanese players celebrated in the same fashion as my Cardinals in the World series, with one crucial difference. It was in Japanese, not English (or espanol, this being LA).

Then it struck me... we're all people, the same basic needs, wants and desires. Victory is victory, triumph is triumph, failure is failure, hope is hope, and baseball is baseball. Made me smile and the world was a little brighter in my late night vigil.

Here come's the real problem

This is ridiculous.

Numerical Perspective

www.xkcd.com

President on Leno

So, the band just played a nice mix between Dixie and Hail to the Chief... wow.

EDIT: AIG was just a regular old insurance company???
EDIT: A securitized credit market? Government lending on a large scale???
EDIT: Obama is pluging Plug in hybrids??
EDIT: Obama rolled a 129. Last time I went bowling, i was beat by some pretty blonde girl on crutches.
EDIT: "If you want a friend in washington, get a dog!" (I like it!)

AIG Bonuses, Impending Inflation, Teleprompters... and awesomeness.

I think the employees of AIG have earned their bonuses. The company should be under water right now, liquidating amongst the capitalists of the world. Rather, they managed to swipe billions from the USA. From a corporate view, they've earned their bonuses.

The administration is looking to conjure a bogyman so it can perpetuate a sense of crisis. In the words of Rhambo, never waste a good crisis.
And the printing of $1,000,000,000,000? Three cheers for rampant inflation. It'll be a joy when gas is hitting $5 a gallon, if only because the consumer price index rises due to inflation. You simply cannot just print more money, that is one economic lesson that the chronicles of history scream incessantly.

As for our Fearless Leader Barak H. Obama, he was a busy man on Tuesday.
"Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.

It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."

A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself for inviting everyone to the party."

In other news... 1000 posts.
Didn't figure I'd break 4 figures this soon. Thanks for reading and commenting. I'm terribly blessed to have grown up in an age where the Internet has come into its own, and it's really amazing how like minds that are thousands of miles apart can still come together in the blogosphere.

Obama and Brown

Newsbusters: "As the visit of the national leader of our closest ally began, the President informed the Brits that he wouldn't be attending the joint press conference that was planned to be held once PM Brown's plane touched down.

This threw the visiting delegation into a tizzy leaving them scrambling to explain the sudden change in plans to the folks back home. Still, meetings were had and things smoothed out. Eventually the visit seemed to right itself... then came the Obama's gift gaffes.

It is well understood that visiting diplomatic delegations come bearing gifts and gift giving is returned in like fashion by the host country. It is an ages old human practice in diplomacy after all. Usually the gifts are valuable, representative of the products of the nations involved, or at least symbolic of the history of those nations.

For his part, PM Brown gave two symbolic gifts and one that expressed national pride. Brown came bearing a pen holder carved from the timbers of the sister ship of that which gave the wood to create the famous "Resolute Desk," the desk that has been in America's charge since 1880. He also gave Obama the framed commission for that famous ship, the HMS Resolute. His third gift was a seven-volume biography of one of England's greatest leaders, Winston Churchill.

So, what did President Obama give the British PM? 25 movies on DVD. Yeah, that's it. Brown gives a symbolic gift like the pen holder fashioned from a famous British warship and Obama responds by sending a staffer to WalMart to pick up a few quick movies.

... Not to be out done in tastelessness by her husband, Michelle got into the act, too. Mrs. Brown came bearing two outfits for the Obama girls from Topshop, one of Britain's trendiest and expensive women's wear retail outlets.
In return, Michelle apparently had a staffer run down to the White House gift shop and grab two toy Marine One helicopter models for the Brown's boys."

This is quite frankly revolting. It would be ill treatment for many Heads of States, but especially so for one of the United Kingdom, a nation which is undoubtedly our staunchest ally in this world.

There absolutely has to be something going on here. For a president who based his foreign policy on winning friends to reject the friends we have makes little sense, especially considering the profusion of appreciation for United States. How can a group of politicians so competent on the campaign trail become so amazingly imbecilic once they are in the White House?

Oh, and the White House response to the situation?
"...The President noted that the pen set is being displayed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and the books are in the Presidents personal study adjoining the Oval Office.... "

Monkeying around in Iran

Guardian UK:
"Live television is hardly the most convenient setting in which to be reminded of the age-old proverb that only children and fools speak the truth.

So the father who nicknamed his child's toy monkey after Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, must have been mortified to have his private joke cruelly exposed when the youngster took part in one of the country's most popular TV phone-ins.

The embarrassing disclosure was made on Amoo Pourang (Uncle Pourang), a programme watched by millions of Iranian children three times a week on state TV. It came when the unsuspecting presenter, Dariush Farziayi, asked the name of the toy animal his young caller had been given as a reward for good behaviour. "Well, my father calls him Ahmadinejad," the child replied.

Now the father's discomfort has spread to the programme-makers after the state broadcaster, IRIB, responded by withdrawing it from viewing schedules. The final episode will be screened next week after a successful seven-year run.

A conservative website, Jahan News, quoting "reliable sources," said the decision was prompted by the "high financial and spiritual damage" inflicted by live broadcasts. "

Heh. This made my day.

Senate Dives into Omnibus Earmarktacular Budget

It passed yesterday, much to the consternation of all thoughtful citizens.

It also passed on a voice vote, providing little accountability for those elected by the people. Rather then actually taking the time to file a vote on this, we just had 100 old people shout at each other. It was all very civil.

There is a semi-record of the vote, in that there was a Roll Call vote before the vote came up.
Look for your senators, both of mine from Texas voted no.



Meanwhile...
"Absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely"
-Our Fearless Leader Obama, 1st Presidential Debate:

The sad fact though, is that the largest waste is by far the federal spending itself, not the earmarks attached. They really are little more then ears upon an ugly beast.

The Obama Effect

Seattle Times: "The Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 21 percent during Obama's first seven weeks in office. Count back to Election Day and the results are even bleaker: That afternoon, the Dow closed at 9,625. Now it stands at 6,547, a loss of 32 percent.

...

Before Obama, the worst Dow performance for the first seven weeks of a new administration was an 18 percent plunge in 1974 after Gerald Ford was sworn in, during a severe bear market triggered by the Arab oil crisis.

Ronald Reagan presided over a Dow decline of more than 20 percent from April 1981 through the end of the 1982 bear market. And in 2001, George W. Bush's first year in office, the Dow plunged from a peak above 11,000 to a low below 8,300 after the Sept. 11 attacks."

If I can understand this, I know you can understand this, then Washington understands this.

It's increasingly difficult to see why we continue with Fascist government policies. Since the victory of Big Government in the twilight days of 2008, the market has responded as it should. Shrinking away from that which seeks to hurt it, a larger federal government.

More Taxes? Bad Business. More Subsidies? Bad Business. More Protectionism? Bad Business.

On a Personal Note, here's whats been going on.
Mexico went very well, we finished the house in 4 days, fastest I've been a part of yet. Even though we were in the hot spot of the drug war called Reynosa, we saw very little activity. Its there, but we weren't threatened by it.
This time though, I had the good fortune of snagging ol Montezuma's Revenge this past week, so I was out of commission for a few days. I should be back in action as we rapidly approach breaking 1000 posts.