Author: Retired Spook

Obama Crosses the Line

Retired Spook163 Comments

Well, the President has certainly stepped in it this time.

The Supreme Court firmly established in Marbury v. Madison in 1803 that government behavior that is repugnant to the Constitution is not valid, and it is the duty of the courts to make that determination and to invalidate such behavior. This is called “judicial review:” It is the power of the courts to review the acts of the other branches of the federal government, and to review the laws of the states, and to void them when they exceed the confines of the Constitution. No serious legal scholar has questioned this power in the past 175 years.

The president is entitled to his own opinions, just like everyone else is. He is free to argue and to predict that ObamaCare should and will be upheld. But he cannot seriously suggest, with intellectual honesty, that the Court is without lawful authority to invalidate an act of Congress that the Court determines is repugnant to the Constitution.

Nor can he, with intellectual honesty, issue veiled threats to the Court.

The Court is his equal, as a branch of government. But since 1803, the Court is superior to the president on having the final say as to what the laws and what the Constitution mean; and the president knows that.

Now the Judge says the President “knows” all this, which begs the question, why then did he say what he said?  Is it simply his narcissism showing through?  Did Justice Kagen already get word to him that ObamaCare will be struck down, and he’s just getting even — in a juvenile, school-yard sort of way.  He could have just called the Supreme Court a bunch of poopy heads; it would have been about as effective and classy as what he said.  I suppose this could, as a number of pundits have suggested, be a way of preparing his army of useful idiots to take to the streets in protest if and when the Court announces that it has found the law unconstitutional.  And, of course, there’s always the possibility that he already knows the Court will uphold ObamaCare, and he will simply be able to say, “see, I told you they couldn’t strike it down”.  I’m not betting the farm on that last option, but nothing this crew does surprises me anymore.

The interesting thing to take note of will be opinion polls over the next week or two as they relate to Obama’s approval by Independents.  I can’t imagine a large percentage of Independents admiring this latest move by the President, and without a strong majority of Independents’ votes, he’s toast in November.

Either/Or

Retired Spook85 Comments

A few days ago President Obama again called for Congress to eliminate federal subsidies for oil companies and said Congress could either stand with the big oil companies or with the American people.  This has been one of the hallmarks of his administration: posing either/or scenarios, which got me to thinking that it would make an interesting exercise for our regulars, particularly our conservative regulars.  You Progressives are welcome to play as well, but it’s going to mean that you’ll have to first admit that Obama and his fellow travelers are routinely engaged in divisive tactics.

Sharpen up your Google skills, and let’s see how long a list we can compile of instances where Obama or someone from his administration has said “we can either do A, or we can do B”.  Video links are preferable, but direct quotes from a reliable news source are also acceptable.

 

Inflation and Gas Prices

Retired Spook27 Comments

Back when the banks and insurance companies were being bailed out in late 2008 and early 2009, and the nearly trillion dollar stimulus was passed, there was a lot of speculation that it wouldn’t take long for inflation to rear its ugly head.  The unprecedented increase in the monetary base by the Fed foretold, in many people’s minds, the main ingredient for inflation as soon as the velocity of money picked up.  So far those fears don’t seem to have been realized, although prominent individuals are still warning that massive inflation is just around the corner.

I’ve been kicking around the possibility of a blog discussion about inflation, how our fractional reserve banking system is predicated on around 2% annual inflation (non-technological goods double in price every 36 years) and just needed some impetus to kick it off.  Then yesterday I heard something that was so incredulous I had to check it out. The guy who does our local AM drive-time talk show was discussing the recent spike in gas prices that has most local stations over $4/gal. for the first time since the summer of 2008. He made the statement that, back in the 60’s and early 70’s, a quarter would buy a gallon of gas in most parts of the country — and a quarter will still buy a gallon of gas in most parts of the country today.  I checked it out, and it’s true.

So, in terms of hard assets, the price of gasoline really hasn’t gone up at all in over 50 years.  That got me to thinking, just how much of our perceived prosperity and increase in standard of living over the course of that 50 years is due to technological innovation resulting in greater economies of scale and increased productivity, and how much is simply due to inflation?  And finally, at what point does inflation become really worrisome for the average American?

Supreme Court Oral Arguments on ObamaCare – Open Thread

Retired Spook187 Comments

The Supreme Court is halfway through its 3 days of oral arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, highlighted by this reaction from Justice Anthony Kennedy:

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a possible swing vote for the court, was rigorously challenging Verrilli. Kennedy said he needed to answer a “very heavy burden of justification” to show how the Constitution authorizes Congress to require that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty.

At one point, Kennedy said the mandate changes the relationship between citizens and the government “in a fundamental way.”

Lots of news on this, and judicial bloggers are having a field day.  Good time for an open thread.

Our Rich Pay More Than Your Rich

Retired Spook38 Comments

I’ve lost track of the number of time our resident Liberals have cited the “fact” that American tax rates are among the lowest in the world, and our rich aren’t paying their fair share.  Now, however, a noted liberal pundit is admitting publicly that that’s not true

On CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday, the perilously liberal host actually complained about America’s tax code being too progressive while noting, “The top ten percent in America pay a larger share of total taxes, 45.1%, than do the top ten percent in any of the 24 countries examined” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I hope that one of the major focuses of this election campaign will be our tax system.  For too long we’ve punished initiative and entrepreneurism and rewarded sloth.  That has to change.

Hat tip to Cluster for the link for this post

The Hunger Games

Retired Spook25 Comments

The movie, “The Hunger Games” debuted Friday with box office sales of nearly $70 million, and is on track to book between $130 and $140 million in its first 3 days.  My neighbor’s daughter read the book for school, and has been telling me a little about it.  Although she hasn’t come right out and said it, I suspect that one of the reasons the movie, based on the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, has resonated with young people in particular, is that many of them have a relatively hopeless view of the future and don’t see the premise as all that unrealistic.

There have been apocalyptic/post-America books and movies around for as long as I can remember.  What are some of your favorites, and why do you think this latest example of the genre has so captivated audiences?

The Stock Market and the Economy

Retired Spook40 Comments

A couple days ago in the Energy Open Thread, our resident progressive clown equated the stock market doubling during Obama’s term (as opposed to “tanking” at the end of Bush’s second term) to be a dynamic he wanted to see more of in a second Obama term.  I have no idea how many regulars here follow the markets closely, but I do, so I got a chuckle out of Bozo’s uninformed comment.  It also got me to thinking that the damage Obama’s and the Fed’s monetary and fiscal policies have inflicted on the average American had the makings of an interesting discussion.

In the course of my research, I ran across an op-ed from a little over a year ago that spells out in layman’s terms precisely what’s happened.

Does the United States still have a stock market?  Not really. In a real market, when there are more sellers than buyers, prices decline. And vice versa of course. That is called “price discovery”; or used to be. Since January of 2010 investors have withdrawn a net total of 81 billion dollars from U.S. stocks and funds, this week marking the 33rd consecutive week of outflows, while stock prices have staged a missile launch upward that started in mid-July.   Floyd Norris of the New York Times confirms that outflows have remained at record high levels over the last four years.  (as a side note, that outflow trajectory continued through most of 2011 as well) Some of the funds withdrawn resulted from industry insider selling, and much of that was re-invested in commodities and emerging markets. But a substantial amount, according to Charles Biderman, CEO of Trimtabs, was withdrawn by middle-class Americans to pay monthly bills.

In an unprecedented interview on CNBC, Biderman stated that the Federal Reserve is no longer denying the fact that it has been rigging U.S. markets nor is the Fed making any effort to hide it. An unrelenting and counter-intuitive rally has ensued, with stock prices gapping up at 4:00 AM night after night and never looking back. Even before the Fed initiated its POMO (Permanent Open Market Operations) injections of outright treasury buys in a program euphemistically titled “Quantitative Easing 2” (a.k.a printing money out of thin air) the Fed’s daily zero percent loans of taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan were used almost exclusively to buy stocks – and then sell them again within minutes or even seconds. Investment banks use high frequency trading computers (HFTs) programmed to essentially steal money, one penny at a time, from any retail investor foolish enough to believe he could make money by trading or investing in stocks. Their computers, operating at speeds no human with a laptop could match, front-run orders, ensuring a profit on every trade. Wall Street investment banks have the right, unlike everyone else, to trade in increments of 1/1000 of a penny, allowing them to deny order fills by keeping the price 1/1000 of a penny below the bid. It is one of many questionable and even illegal practices engaged in by what the internet bears cartoons refer to as the “the Goldman Sack” and “the JP Morgue”.  The web cartoons have gone viral, as they say, and served to educate the uninitiated in the grand-theft-stock-market game being run by the Fed and the Wall Street gangs.

The writer concludes with this:

Where will the U.S. economy be when QE2 ends?   It will be where it is now, as the Fed’s money printing, while raising the costs of essential food and energy, has had no notable effect on job numbers or salaries. What it does do, with every uptick in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is increase the wealth of those who are already wealthy.

To get a mental picture of just what this current crew in power has done to our monetary base, one really has to see it in chart form.  In July, 2009, Richard Anderson, Vice President of the St. Louis Fed, had this to say about the mercurial rise in the monetary base (which has continued almost uninterrupted since):

Monetary Policy Implications of Nontraditional Programs

In several speeches, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has emphasized that nontraditional policy focuses on reducing stress in specific financial markets, that is, on credit easing. The focus is apparent in the types of securities purchased, including commercial paper, mortgage-backed securities and privately issued asset-backed securities.

Be this as it may, the programs nonetheless have greatly increased the monetary base—and portend, if not promptly reversed when economic activity revises, higher future inflation. When will confidence return to the economy, such that banks feel able to accurately assess the riskiness of loans and borrowers feel confident in their ability to repay? When confidence returns, will financial markets be roiled as the Fed reduces its assets and the monetary base? Finally, the Fed now has an additional policy instrument not previously available: the payment of interest on deposits at the Fed.5 Can it be used to forestall undesired increases in bank lending?

Recent increases in the monetary base are far greater than any previously in American history (even adjusted for the size of the economy), surely a “noble experiment” in policymaking. Will these policies be successful without accelerating inflation? The epitaph to this curious case of monetary base expansion is yet to be written.

The one truly amazing aspect of everything that’s happened in the last 3 years is that they’ve been able to keep the ball in the air as long as they have.  How much longer?  A functional crystal ball would come in real handy about now.

Energy Open Thread

Retired Spook87 Comments

It seems lately that nearly every discussion inevitably leads back to a reference to energy.  Yesterday the President touted fuel efficient vehicles as one of the solutions.  GM and the American public don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

Much to the chagrin of his supporters on the extreme environmental Left, President Obama admitted that we’ll still be running transportation vehicles on gasoline in 2025:

In his weekly radio and online address Saturday, Obama said Detroit automakers are on track to build cars that average nearly 55 miles per gallon by 2025, doubling current mileage standards.

So where do we go from here?  And, for a change, lets keep ideology and insults out of the conversation and concentrate on solutions.  Contrary to what Left and Right constantly throw at each other on this blog, I still believe we all essentially want the same thing, a free, prosperous America.  If you don’t want that, either stay out of the conversation or explain why what you want is better.

 

Climate Change Update

Retired Spook74 Comments

It looks like another semi-prominent member of the Climate Alarmist community has gotten caught with his whole arm in the cookie jar.  I’ve been waiting to see how the story that has become known as FakeGate (bet you haven’t seen any mention of that in the MSM) would play out before posting a summary, but The Weekly Standard has saved me the trouble.  Wattsupwiththat has also been keeping the story at the top of its site since the first revelations about 2 weeks ago, and is up to their 58th update as of today.

The Weekly Standard article ends with some interesting comments and revelations:

More than a few observers have asked why anyone should trust Gleick’s scientific judgment if his judgment about how to deal with climate skeptics is so bad. -Gleick’s defense of his motives would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic: “My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts—often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated—to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.”

Let’s take these in order. Anony-mous? True, Heartland’s board documents reveal seven-figure contributions for their climate work from one “anonymous donor,” but environmental organizations take in many multiples of Heartland’s total budget in anonymous donations washed through the left-wing Tides Foundation. The Environmental Defense Fund thanks 141 anonymous donors in one recent report. “Well-funded”? Heartland’s total budget for all its issues, which include health care, education, and technology policy, is around $4.4 million, an amount that would disappear into a single line item in the budget for the Natural Resources Defense Council ($99 million in revenues in 2010). Last year, the Wall Street Journal reports, the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million just on “public education.”

The dog that didn’t bark for the climateers in this story is the great disappointment that Heartland receives only a tiny amount of funding from fossil fuel sources—and none from ExxonMobil, still the bête noire of the climateers. Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens had given $453,000 to the left-wing Center for American Progress for its “clean energy” projects, and Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club over $25 million (anonymously until it leaked out) for the Club’s anti-coal ad campaign. Turns out the greens take in much more money from fossil fuel interests than the skeptics do.

Finally, “coordinated”? Few public policy efforts have ever had the massive institutional and financial coordination that the climate change cause enjoys. That tiny Heartland, with but a single annual conference and a few phone-book-sized reports summarizing the skeptical case, can derange the climate campaign so thoroughly is an indicator of the weakness and thorough politicization of climate alarmism.

The Gleick episode exposes again a movement that disdains arguing with its critics, choosing demonization over persuasion and debate. A confident movement would face and crush its critics if its case were unassailable, as it claims. The climate change fight doesn’t even rise to the level of David and Goliath. Heartland is more like a David fighting a hundred Goliaths. Yet the serial ineptitude of the climate campaign shows that a tiny David doesn’t need to throw a rock against a Goliath who swings his mighty club and only hits himself square in the forehead.

As most regular readers here know, I’ve followed this issue for a long time, although after the second release of emails known as ClimateGate 2 a  few months ago, my interest in what will eventually become known as the greatest scientific scam of all time began to wane.  FakeGate may well be the final nail in the AWG coffin.  One can only hope.