Creating "Stagflation" on Purpose

From the Daily Capitalist on the apparent desire of the Fed to print money until inflation kicks in, thus “reviving” the economy:

..These “modern” economists ignore the need to deleverage and the need for malinvested capital tied up in unprofitable ventures to be liquidated and then reinvest capital in new profitable ventures. They ignore inflation’s distortion of the economic function of the act of saving which gives false go signals to producers of higher order goods (goods that take a long time to make). They ignore the creation of a new boom-bust business cycle based on a papered over mirage of fake profits. They ignore the fact that once the inflation stops, the economy collapses again.

President Evans is a big QE guy and he has been writing a lot about it lately and he has a vote on the Fed’s policy decisions (member of FOMC). Mr. Evans favors a “targeted inflation rate” which means they will print money until they achieve their desired inflation target of about 2%. Oh, and here is the latest idea which various Fed economists have invented: the “inflation deficit.” What they mean is that they can create price inflation higher than 2% for a while because since we’ve had price inflation below the 2% target we can sort of average out to 2% inflation over time. Hey, you can never have enough inflation according to these guys…

…I hope you appreciate the 13% devaluation of the dollar by 2014…

Do read the whole article because this is really what they want to do. Grasp that: they want your money to become rapidly worth less in order for you to stop saving money and go on a spending spree…and if you can throw in a bit of borrowing at the same time, so much the better. This is the economic insanity we live under – a world in which hard work, savings and careful investment is set aside in favor of a “get rich quick” scheme of economic “pump priming”.

Take it as a given that they will try this – though not, of course, until after the election. And don’t think of it as some sort of weird conspiracy: its really no more than the financial bosses having been raised on Keynesian economics and not knowing any other way to act. They really think they’re going to get us out of this mess by being even more profligate and silly than we were getting in to the mess.

We can hope that a new GOP House (and, just perhaps, a GOP Senate) will be able to put the brakes on this, but the Federal Reserve is rather outside the control of Congress (and that is part of a conspiracy, of a sort: the banksters and bureaucrats never, ever wanted the people or their representatives to have a say in monetary policy); it would take legislative action to stop them, and that would take Obama’s consent. There is an outside chance we could get that consent, but it is likely that as any moves will come from the GOP, Obama will be easily convinced to reject it simply for that reason.

The end result of all this will be, as noted in the linked article, a return to the “stagflation” of the 1970’s – rapidly rising prices while unemployment skyrockets and interest rates go stratospheric. Everyone’s grand mother will tell you that there is no free lunch and no short cut to success…but our Keynesians are convinced of both things.

Its going to be a long, long year in 2011…

HAT TIP: Zero Hedge

UPDATE: The Brits figure it out.

John McCain: Meghan Wrong on O'Donnell

Dad chimes in on daughter’s immature remarks – from ABC News:

Meghan McCain got some buzz on Sunday by calling Christine O’Donnell a “nut job,” but on “GMA” today her dad didn’t take the bait.

“My daughter and I have very spirited conversations from time to time and it’s a lot of fun,” Sen. John McCain told me. “With all due respect to my daughter, the primary voters of Delaware chose Christine O’Donnell and she’s the candidate.”…

Meghan McCain is someone who doesn’t seem to understand that the liberal MSM loves her simply because she’s the daughter of John McCain and is willing to say hard things about Republicans the MSM really hates. She keeps saying these things because she gets applause when she does – she’ll find out, though, that if she actually strays in to advocacy of a genuinely conservative position, that her MSM friends will turn on her.

With age comes wisdom, we hope – and perhaps Ms. McCain will eventually find it. Be terrible if she wound up like Ron Reagan in the future…

Jimmy "Rent is Too D*** High" McMillan: Reaganite

Interesting bit over at NRO’s The Corner:

…McMillan refuses to speak ill of his rivals, Carl Paladino and Andrew Cuomo. A veteran of the Vietnam War, McMillan says Paladino “is my brother because he was a captain in the United States Army for five years. I would never say anything negative about him. He told me his credentials backstage before the debate. I didn’t know. I wanted to eat him up. But now he’s my brother.”

Still, there’s one politician McMillan admires: Ronald Reagan. The 40th president charmed audiences with his impeccable sense of humor, and McMillan tried to emulate his example last night. For instance, at one point he rhymed his answer: “There’s nowhere to go. Once again, why? You said it, ‘The rent is too damn high.’” The audience roared. “Once the other candidates heard that,” he says, “they were doomed.”…

Clearly a gentleman of unique insight and talent – I wish him well.

Obamunism! Gallup: Unemployment at 10%

Of course, this won’t be official until November 5th…three days after the election:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is at 10.0% in mid-October — essentially the same as the 10.1% at the end of September but up sharply from 9.4% in mid-September and 9.3% at the end of August. This mid-month measurement confirms the late September surge in joblessness that should be reflected in the government’s Nov. 5 unemployment report.

The thing this most clearly shows is that unemployment is rising – and rising pretty fast. I’m betting that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has fudged the numbers over the past few months to keep the official rate below 10% for the election, but once that is past they’ll have to put their numbers back in line with reality. Expect a pretty hefty bump in the unemployment number on November 5th.

We’re spiraling downwards – Obama’s policies have failed. The next Congress will have to get a grip on this by slashing spending, retaining the Bush tax cuts and generally making things so that wealth can be created.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Iowahawk Smacks the Liberals

Liberals got themselves in a tizzy over Sarah Palin’s caution to the TEA Party not to “party like its 1773, yet” – our liberals figured Palin was some kind of idiot over this, but as it turns out that was the year – drum roll, please – of the Boston Tea Party. Over on Twitter, Iowahawk is having a field day:

Match number to subject. 1773, 1776, 2112, 73 : Boston Tea Party, American Revolution, bitchin’ Rush album, Kos IQ

The Boston Tea Party occured in (a) 1773 (b) 1776 (c) the year 2525 (d) Ned Lamont’s chinos

“Moulitsas” is Greek for (a) Frog Eyes (b) Remedial (c) 1773 (d) Fail

The 1st Amendment guarantees the freedom (a) of speech (b) of 3-ply absorbency (c) to burn US military contractors alive

Pearl Harbor was attacked by (a) Japan (b) Italy (c) Teabaggers (d) Screw ‘Em

Kos History Quiz: the War of 1812 took place in (a) 1812 (b) 1967 (c) 3.14159 (d) George Bush

UPDATE: And then there’s The Onion

According to recent media reports, Democrats stand to lose as many as 8,000 congressional seats and more than 917 gubernatorial races in November’s midterm elections. “Republicans are poised to pick up 1,500 seats in Ohio alone, and could wind up with a 23,576-to-12 majority in the Senate,” Beltway observer Isaac Hundt said Wednesday…

Democrat Desperation Grows

From The Hill:

A House Democratic lawmaker said late last week that he’d heard Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t seek another term as Speaker.

Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) said that not only would he not back Pelosi (D-Calif.) for Speaker again, but also that he’d heard she would not seek another term in that position…

Translation: “please vote for me, I won’t help Nancy stay as Speaker; and, anyways, I heard this story that she won’t run again, so you don’t need to vote against me to get her out!”.

This is the last shriek of despair as Democrats head in to what will be a crushing defeat.

Coons, O'Donnell and the First Amendment

Just to refresh everyone’s memory:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – 1st Amendment

This is how the MSM is spinning a bit of the Coons/O’Donnell debate:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion…

The only way to write more dishonestly about what O’Donnell said would be to write, “and then O’Donnell flapped around quacking like a duck”. The report bears almost no relation to the actual event. Here is a link to video taken of the event – its about 8 minutes long, the statements on Church and State are at 2:48 and 6:09; what O’Donnell asks is whether or not the 1st Amendment has “separation of Church and State” in it. As the above quote shows, it does not – we do not separate Church and State, we prohibit the government from establishing a Church, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That is a very important difference.

It is shown in the surrounding issues explored in this debate – with Coons asserting that the federal government must prohibit school districts from teaching anything other than strict, Darwinian evolutionism because anything else is religious and therefor “banned” by the Constitution’s alleged separation of Church and State. Coons is wrong – but he’s also, in this, just a typical liberal. Liberals want very much to have religion reduced to an entirely private affair – out of the public square, entirely.

That the MSM is playing this up shows that they, too, have a complete lack of knowledge of basic, Constitutional principles…the same lack of understanding which makes them convinced that some how, some way, a right to an abortion is guaranteed by the Constitution (this is also something Coons advances as further “proof” that O’Donnell doesn’t understand the Constitution). What this boils down to is the real debate – what we are arguing about: will we have a nation which obeys the actual Constitution, or a nation which obeys whatever fads liberals choose to assert are in the Constitution?

Make no mistake about it, returning to a Constitutional order in the United States won’t be merely cutting taxes and spending. In this, the more libertarian members of the TEA Party movement err in their own right. Returning to the Constitution means obeying it in its entirety – a whole host of laws, court decisions and regulatory fiats will have to be set aside, not least of which are in the area of “social issues”.

We are at the cross roads – will we return to liberty in its entirety, or just make a half-hearts, purely economic effort which will be doomed because our liberals will keep pressing their view unless we destroy it completely? Freedom is a difficult and uncomfortable thing to deal with – it really means allowing people to do as they wish in the crucial matters. If a school district wants to teach a “young earth” theory of creation, the only people who should have a say in it are the people of that local school district…no one outside that area should interfere.

What will we have, fellow Americans? Liberty, or tyranny? The choice is ours – and those who choose liberty, simply have to back O’Donnell over Coons even if one thinks that O’Donnell has some personal ideas which are distasteful…whatever her ideas are, she won’t impose them on anyone without their express consent…while Coons will blithely impose whatever he thinks best, regardless of what anyone wants.

Make your choice.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit chimes in – O’Donnell got it right.

UPDATE II: Just to let everyone know, by playing it this way, the MSM just opened themselves a big, old can of Catholic/Christian whoop-a**. We really are much better up on this stuff than they suspect…

UPDATE III: NRO’s Battle 10 interviews O’Donnell on this issue.

Obamunism! Debt Rises $3 Trillion on Obama's Watch

And we’re not even half way through it, yet – from CBS News:

New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office.

The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. The Bureau of Public Debt reported today that the National Debt had hit an all time high of $13.665 trillion…

The shameful thing for us Republicans is that during the Bush years, the debt rose nearly $5 trillion – but that took 8 years to happen. Obama is 60% of Bush’s debt in less than one fourth the amount of time! This is a criminal misuse of American wealth – and it must be stopped.

If you were feeling a little slack as the campaign enters its terminal phase; if you’re thinking “hey we’re going to win, so why sweat anymore?”, then stop it. We have to work to defeat as many Democrats as possible. We need to do this to give us the ability to stymie Obama’s profligate spending and bring back fiscal sanity. The future of our nation depends on it.