The hard task of life:

The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other. – Douglas MacArthur

The Mrs and I would love to take a cruise, head to an all-inclusive spa, laze on a beach some where…but, you know, poverty sucks. Like all Americans, we’re feeling the pinch of 2009. We’re not nearly as bad off as all too many of our fellow Americans, but we’re certainly not a freewheeling as we once were. So, we’re about to have our second party of the summer – just a gathering of friends, pot-luck, a bit of beer and wine and just chatting over this or that. We’re going to do more of this – we’re having a “stay-cation”.

What are you doing to enjoy summer and poverty?

And when (not if, boys and girls, but when)it does, we’ll be lucky if we avoid 25% unemployment:

China’s banks are veering out of control. The half-reformed economy of the People’s Republic cannot absorb the $1,000bn (£600bn) blitz of new lending issued since December.

Money is leaking instead into Shanghai’s stock casino, or being used to keep bankrupt builders on life support. It is doing very little to help lift the world economy out of slump.

Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China’s lenders are wading into dangerous waters, but its latest report is even grimmer than bears had suspected.

“With much of the world immersed in crisis, China appears to be one of the few countries where the financial system continues to function largely without a glitch, but Fitch is growing increasingly wary,” it said.

“Future losses on stimulus could turn out to be larger than expected, and it is unclear what share the central and/or local governments ultimately will be willing or able to bear.”

Note the phrase “able to bear”. Fitch’s “macro-prudential risk” indicator for China threatens to jump from category 1 (safe) to category 3 (Iceland, et al). This is a surprise to me but Michael Pettis from Beijing University says China’s public debt may be as high as 50pc-70pc of GDP when “correctly counted”.

China has been honeycombed with bad debt for two decades – masked by an exceptionally good trade balance which allowed China to continue to float those bad debts. The debts in question are to institutions and individuals well-connected with the Chinese power elite…its not like these guys have to undergo a credit check or that there’s any chance a Chinese bank will deny them a loan, know what I mean? Now that China’s trade balance is collapsing (later in the linked article it is noted that Chinese exports fell 26% in May), there isn’t this influx of cash to balance the books. Meanwhile, China has to find cash, somehow, to buy US debt because if US debt becomes worthless, one trillion dollars of China’s wealth becomes worthless.

It can’t be sustained – you cannot spend your way to wealth and you cannot forever have an economy geared towards rewarding a tiny, powerful elite. Its all going to come crashing down rather soon and rather hard – and then all that debt Obama wants to sell will become worthless and all the money the Fed has printed will become worthless and we might wind up with the fun, fun, fun of high unemployment, high inflation and high interest rates. Welcome back, Carter – but worse: this will be Revenge of the Carter. Even if we avoid “stagflation”, its clear we’re heading in to some really bad times (anecdote: at the corporation I work for, we’re usually busier than a one-armed paper hanger on Mondays…it was very quiet for most of the day…and then only modestly busy later).

From what I can see, there’s no way to avoid what is coming – the Chinese bubble will burst and it will ripple through the entire global economy. It won’t be pretty – and it will be made worse if we keep trying to borrow and spend our way out of it.

They’ll get wealth, we’ll get Obamunism:

Hungary’s minority Socialist government passed a crucial test on Monday when parliament approved key 2010 tax changes to help the country recover from its worst recession in almost two decades.

The passing of the law averts the risk of early elections. Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai had said he would stay in his post as long as the Socialists and the Free Democrats support his programme, which is also the backbone of Hungary’s financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The tax law, which will cut personal income taxes and social contributions paid by employers to the government, was passed with 211 votes and 152 votes against, with backing from the Socialists’ former coalition allies, the Free Democrats.

We’re in a bad way, fellow Americans – European socialists are voting to cut taxes, while our Obama places a crushing burden of taxation and debt upon us. How come we ended up like this? Its just not fair – we’re mired with an European-style President while the Europeans get to become Reaganite!

• Twitter Updates for 2009-06-28 http://tinyurl.com/knhe48 #
• On a Shoestring, Part III http://tinyurl.com/n6zopm #
• Obama’s Chance to Bring Real Foreign Policy Change http://tinyurl.com/mcekb7 #
• Phrase of the Day http://tinyurl.com/lffsmh #
• As the Wheels Start to Come Off the Obama Express http://tinyurl.com/nsonmu #
• Obama Sides With Castro, Chavez on Honduras http://tinyurl.com/n6ly2y #
• Sotomayor: Unfit for the Supreme Court http://tinyurl.com/nbr4lx #

I’m afraid that there can be no justification for backing a Supreme Court nominee who has just been overturned on a major case by the Supreme Court she aspires to join. She was wrong – she played the race card in Judicial Robes and denied justice to fellow Americans.

I know we can’t stop her elevation – but we can sure as heck play no role in it. No GOPer should vote to confirm.

As a matter of course, when you’re on the side of those two guys, you’ve probably got it very wrong on a fundamental level:

Obama says coup in Honduras is illegal

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a “terrible precedent” of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

“We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there,” Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Castro:

Fidel Castro Denounces Honduran Coup

Havana, Cuba (AHN) – While the United States, European Union and Organization of American States have each condemned the coup in Honduras, former Cuban President Fidel Castro has also spoken out against the military’s “blatantly reactionary attempt to prevent an important popular referendum.”

As if Castro would ever hold a referendum on his beastly rule.

Now, Chavez:

Hugo Chavez said in a formal statement that Zelaya had been “violently expelled from his country by a group of unpatriotic, coup-mongering soldiers.”

Says the man who tried to force through a Hitlerian enabling act…

Bottom line, if these two creeps are against it, I’m at least provisionally for it…and Obama should decide who’s friendship he wants…that of a couple commie thugs, or that of the people of the region?

GOPers gear up for battle:

Congressmen and senators have departed Washington, D.C., for the July 4 recess. But unlike ordinary Americans who may take a break from their normal jobs for the holiday week, Republicans will be busy — taking time to rally voters and prepare for the giant legislative battles which await them upon their return.

Roll Call reports that Republicans are hoping to call attention to cap-and-trade, health care, and other items on the liberals’ wish list:

Using the Independence Day break to malign the work of the majority party is a time-honored tradition in Washington, and Republicans hope to live up to tradition by branding Democrats as a “far left” party intent on “big government takeovers,” “bringing terrorists to the U.S.” and purposefully inflating the debt through “wasteful spending,” according to recess messaging documents prepared for House and Senate Republicans.

At the top of the list will be Friday’s vote on cap-and-trade. Minority Leader John Boehner provided some dramatic moments in a mini-filibuster and some 44 Democrats defected from one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s primary legislative proposals…

…Republicans will argue that, not unlike the Obama stimulus plan, the cap-and-trade measure is long on government and short on jobs.

And jobs are increasingly a worry for Democrats. Even liberal columnists like Bob Herbert complained:

Some months ago, the Obama administration and various mainstream economists forecast a peak unemployment rate of roughly 8 percent this year. It has already reached 9.4 percent, and most analysts now expect it to hit 10 percent or higher. Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb. That’s not a recovery. That’s mumbo jumbo.

Why this rampant joblessness is not viewed as a crisis and approached with the sense of urgency and commitment that a crisis warrants, is beyond me.

Indeed – and mumbo jumbo is all Obama and his Democrats have. It all worked splendidly while there wasn’t any actual responsibility for the mess, while there was an unpopular GOP incumbent; while the economy was shaky but not collapsed….but now Democrats are responsible, President Bush is retired in Texas and the economy more and more resembles 1932. Working with the tried-and-true, Obama and his Democrats hope to fool the American people – via their lapdog MSM – into believing that things aren’t as bad as they are and, if they are bad, that its still not Obama’s fault. This will hold as much water as a funnel as things really fall apart on the economy (just as an illustration – the other day I went to celebrate a friend’s birthday at a class Strip eatery…it was dinner time on a Saturday in the summer on the Las Vegas Strip…the place wasn’t even 1/3 full…when parking is easy at the Fashion Show Mall – and we parked mere steps away from the front door, as it were – you know that things are bad…really, really bad).

All it will take for a GOP win is for the GOP to get into the fight. We are going to have some trouble due to our 8 turncoats allowing the Democrats to put a patina of bi-partisanship on their fascist “energy” bill – but, in the end, we’ll still be able to clearly define ourselves in opposition to the job killing, liberty eroding leftist economic policies of Obama and his Democrats.

The news of the world get you down at times? Then have a little faith:

For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing…

But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully, that all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. – 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18

If he can do the right thing by the people of Columbia:

President Obama gets an opportunity to show genuine foreign-policy leadership Monday when he meets with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Between them will sit the unratified Colombia-U.S. free trade agreement. The U.S. failure to get this deal done is a long-running travesty, but that now offers Mr. Obama a chance to show how adept he is at international politics.

The free-trade issue has become complicated by another urgent matter: Will Colombia grant a U.S. request to use the Palanquero military installation north of Bogotá as a U.S. air base, or “cooperative security location”? Mr. Uribe is still asking for ratification of the trade deal (FTA) negotiated in good faith and signed more than 30 months ago. Beyond this display of patience, America’s most important South American partner has gone to great lenths to satisfy Democrats who’ve made charges of violence against labor leaders in the country. The undisputable fact is that under Mr. Uribe’s leadership Colombians are safer than they have been in years.

Democrats nonetheless continue to prevent a vote on the FTA. Big Labor has simply drawn a line in the sand against any new trade agreements, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is complying. Colombia gets whacked.

Now that Obama has gone on a couple “I’m sorry my country is creepy” world tours, it is time to actually get into some foreign policy. Given the state of play in South America, securing Columbia as an energetic security, economic and political ally is crucial – Brazil is ruled by a leftist, Venezuela is ruled by a socialist-fascist tyrant…only Columbia remains as a major South American player open to American friendship. We dare not screw this up – we have to do the right thing, and that means telling the unions to jump in a lake and ratify the FTA.

Will Obama pass the test, or will he scuttle America’s South American policy in order to curry continued favor from corrupt American union bosses?