Just another day on the road to victory:
What is really good is that this is after a week or ten days of Obama relentlessly speaking out on behalf of his “save my job” program…keep it up, Barry!
Exceptionally Appropriate Thought for the Day
From the font of all good thoughts of the day:
Thus says the LORD:
You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!”
Hear now, house of Israel:
Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?
When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies,
it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed,
he does what is right and just,
he shall preserve his life;
since he has turned away from all the sins that he has committed,
he shall surely live, he shall not die. – Ez. 18:25-28
All of us, I think, have our personal pile of iniquity to answer for – I certainly do. Carrying it further, we as a nation have a pile of iniquity, as well. But we can, at any moment, turn from them…and though our sins be as scarlet, we will be made white as snow. As individuals and as a people, we can be better…much better. So better that the resultant peace and justice will make the best times of the past seem a dark and wicked time.
I’m going to try.
We’re in a Heap of Trouble
The end of the world as we know it, says Mark Steyn – and he captures a great deal of the problem in this quote:
…On Thursday night, there was a question on gays in the military but none on the accelerating European debt crisis. It is certainly important to establish whether a would-be president is sufficiently non-homophobic to authorize a crack team of lesbian paratroopers to rappel into the Chinese treasury, break the safe, and burn all our IOUs. But the curious complacency about the bigger questions is disturbing…
For many people, the seriousness of the situation really hasn’t hit home. Oh, its growing, but it isn’t nearly where it needs to be. Good people, we are an ace away from a complete, global meltdown…and such a meltdown which can easily lead to a world war. The world economy is bankrupt and a corrupt Ruling Class doesn’t want to admit it, because admission means immediate replacement. They are hoping we don’t notice until after the election.
But even more serious than that is the moral decline of our civilization…the fact that we’re not having children, we spend money on useless things, we allow immorality to run rampant. All of that adds up to a civilization which wants to die. We have to regain our moral compass and start demanding (beginning with the guy in the mirror, to be sure) that a higher standard is met. If we don’t change it, we’ll be forced in to it anyway…no one is going to pay our way or do our work if we prove too weak to carry the ball. It is either walk out of this liberal blind alley we stumbled in to in 1933, or end America.
Revolt of the Tax Slaves
From Der Speigel:
The people who could ultimately give Greece the coup de grace are not the kind to throw stones or Molotov cocktails, and they have yet to torch any cars. Instead, they are people like 60-year-old beverage distributor Angelos Belitsakos, people who might soon turn into a real problem for the economically unstable country. Feeling cornered, he and other private business owners want to go on the offensive. But instead fighting with weapons, they are using something much more dangerous. They are fighting with money.
Belitsakos is a short, slim and alert man who lives in the middle-class Athenian suburb of Holargos. He is also the physical and spiritual leader of a movement of businesspeople in Greece that is recruiting new members with growing speed. While Greece’s government is desperately trying to combat its ballooning budget deficit by raising taxes and imposing new fees, people like Belitsakos are putting their faith in passive resistance.
The group’s slogan is as simple as it is stoic: “We Won’t Pay.”…
Greece, like all socialist countries is, of course, over run by moochers. People who, by one means or another, get all or most of their income via government funding. Whether its by special tax breaks, government employment or direct welfare payments, a huge number of people (and perhaps a majority, once you total it all up) in Europe either don’t work at all, or don’t work much, or don’t work at anything which creates wealth…but they still manage to live pretty well. And, meanwhile, it is people like Mr. Belitsakos who have been paying for it all. And now that Greece’s socialist fantasy has come economically crashing down, the government wants people like Mr. Belitsakos to pony up even more. And a revolt is brewing.
Do keep in mind that those people you remember rioting from time to time in Greece (and Britain and Spain…and soon to spread elsewhere in Europe) were not hard working, middle class people…they were the moochers who are ticked off that even a small amount of their welfare is being cut. Around the world a revolution is brewing…those who are hard working, play by the rules and try to do the right thing are starting to wake up and shake off those who have lived off them for nigh on a century. There won’t be much room for either a George Soros to manipulate governments to make billions, nor for the welfare bum who runs riot when his stipend is cut.
While there is no way for us to shake off our moral responsibility to those who cannot work through no fault of their own, we must all admit that this moral obligation has been much abused. A gigantic amount of money is siphoned away from the productive in the name of helping the less fortunate, but we know where a large amount (possibly a majority) of it goes: to over paid bureaucrats, crony-capitalists and people who could darn well work, but choose not to. The moochers have, by this point, driven us in to bankruptcy…and their only real answer is to demand more from us…and to take it by taxing it, or by devaluing the currency, which steals the wealth we’ve already created.
You know that things are changing when even in socialist Europe, something akin to the TEA Party emerges. This will be quite an interesting decade, I’m thinking.
HAT TIP: Dan Mitchell
Germany Wants 50% Default for Greece
From Zero Hedge:
…the debt rollover plan has imploded and means that the entire Greek bailout has collapsed as some had expected. And now that it is clear that contagion is threatening to sweep through the core, it is back to Germany to prevent the gangrene, no longer contagion, from advancing beyond the PIIGS. However, in order to prevent a full out revolution, Germany’s economic elite has said it would agree to an EFSF expansion and hence installation of European firewall, but at a price: a “controlled” default by Greece and 50% haircuts for private bondholders (as German banks have long since offloaded their Greek bonds).
This means that “Lehman” is indeed here: just like back in 2008 Paulson et al thought they could contain the adverse effects of a Lehman bankruptcy, while the financial system ground to a halt 4 days later when money market funds broke the buck, so now Greece is somehow expected to remain in the eurozone even as it files bankruptcy…
The bottom line appears to be that the Europeans need to come up with $2 trillion to keep their financial system afloat – that is, to keep the bad news confined to the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and keep it out of France. What Germany seems to want – and it is reasonable – is an end to the Greek problem. That if this is going to happen, it happens once and for all. The Greek bondholders lose 50%, Greece gets bailed out…and hopefully Greece manages to get its finances in order sufficiently to service the rest of their debt.
The trouble is whether or not bailing out Greece – even with a 50% “haircut” for bondholders – will really do the trick. Greece is pretty small potatoes as far as the Eurzone economy goes. Looming gigantically larger are Spain and Italy. As far as I can determine, both of those nations are already fundamentally bankrupt and cannot rely upon the private economy to service their debt as their bonds come due. The only entity out there with the willingness to heavily purchase Spanish and Italian bonds would be the European Central Bank, or whatever financial bail out structure the Europeans come up with. And where does the money come for that? From the Germans who will have already bailed out Greece and have no spare money left? From the European Central Bank printing up a bucket of money? Where?
It is the lack of real money – someone out there with trillions not already committed to some other enterprise – which makes me figure all these efforts to avert collapse are meaningless in an economic sense. In a political sense, they may help the Ruling Class (European and American) ride out the political storm now through 2013. The cost will be enormous, but such things never disturb people who are rich, in charge and determined to stay that way.
So Much for “Frontrunners”: Cain Wins FL Straw Poll
From the Washington Times:
Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls.
“Tonight’s winner is Herman Cain,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced. “It shows you something, the road to the White House come through Florida, and it pays to spend time here.”
He received 37 percent of the more than 2,600 votes cast…
Lots of people will say lots of things about this and some of them will be quite well-informed and illuminating. I’ll say this: victory in the GOP nomination will go to the guy (or gal) who gets the most votes…no one really knows how it will come out or who will win. This may be a flash in the pan for Cain (though I think it reflects a reservoir of good will for him in the GOP electorate), but it clearly shows that for all the Perry/Romney/Bachmann talking headism of the MSM (and a lot of the New Media), the GOP electorate has not settled on a candidate.
Here’s a thought – why don’t we let this fine collection of men and women state their positions, hash things out in open debate, and then we voters go to the polls and decide who wins? Once that has happened, we’ll have a nominee and everyone who isn’t an Obama zombie will then have the duty of enthusiastically supporting the nominee to ensure that Obama leaves office on January 20th, 2013. That, at least, is how I think it should go.
Another Obama Crony Capitalist
From Politico:
President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state.
Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.
Continue ReadingHis energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri…
If the name “Carnahan” sounds familiar it is because Tom is the son of former Missouri governor Mel Carnahan and former Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan. In other words, what we’ve got here is the scion of a massively connected, political family who is building up a personal fortune via taxpayer subsidy. This is the sort of private enterprise our Democrats actually like…someone who is in the private sector, gets massive government aid and then turns around and boosts Democrats at election time. If the Democrats fully had their way, the only people permitted to be in business would be people like Tom Carnahan.
The world Obama wants to build – the change you can really believe in – is to create in the United States an European-style Ruling Class in which all power in government and industry is held by those who are well-connected…not those who earn it; not those in whom public reposes their trust. The future will be Tom Carnahan clones getting rich and Barack Obama’s running the show while the rest of us dwindle in to poverty and slowly die out as welfare and the Culture of Death sap our will to live…
Revolution is the answer…and next year we can do it.
HAT TIP: Hot Air
Iran’s Nuclear Facility Unsafe?
Interesting bit of news from Strategy Page:
…Russians who worked at Bushehr complained of sloppy work by Iranians and a nuclear power facility that is fundamentally unsafe. Perhaps because of this, the government recently announced that 4,000 civilians living near the Bushehr plant would be relocated, at a cost of $10 million…
If the Russians are considering it unsafe, then one has to wonder just how bad it is…the guys who built Chernobyl are scared. Just great. Not only is Iran only building the bloody things so they can eventually get nuclear weapons, but they are building them badly, probably much too rushed and we have the risk of a major nuclear accident to add to the risk that those lunatics might get nuclear weapons.
This is the price of not acting decisively. Iran’s nuclear facilities should have been destroyed years ago…long before any nuclear fuel could get to a nuclear plant which may be unsafe. It is time for us to stop acting like fools – regimes like that which governs Iran are not legitimate. They don’t have the right to issue a parking ticket, let alone build nuclear. It is up to decent people to decide how far such a regime can go…and as soon as it became clear that Iran was bent on nukes, we should have taken the steps to halt the program, even if it meant war.
Now we’re kind of stuck. We’ve got a President who doesn’t even realize the risks and we’ve got Iran an ace away from having nuclear weapons which can target all of the middle east. It is just going to get worse and worse because we did not act with firmness an in accordance with American convictions about what constitutes legitimate government. Just burns me up that the merest application of morality to the Iranian situation would have produced the correct decision…we didn’t and now we’re going to catch it hot.
Obama, Ruling Class Desperate for Europe to Act
From Zero Hedge:
The Obama administration has been fiercely lobbying European governments and central banks to shut up and do something. No more disagreements in public, Timothy Geithner told them in Poland. No more disputes over fundamental issues. To heck with democratic problem resolution. The world is collapsing, and it’s time to act boldly and decisively. Hank Paulson’s extortion racket is back.
This time, it isn’t Congress and American taxpayers that are targeted, but the Europeans, or rather a select few, in particular certain recalcitrant elements in the German government and in the Bundesbank. The White House brandishes the big fix of 2008 and 2009. That’s how we fixed our crisis, that’s how you should fix yours, they say.
Alas, the big fix of 2008 and 2009 today: Withered green shoots, high unemployment, annual budget deficits near 10% of GDP, and a gargantuan pile of debt…
So, why would Obama and Co want the Europeans to do that? Because they are afraid that an European collapse will drop the whole world in to Depression and that would kill off any chance of Obama getting re-elected. It doesn’t matter that duplicating our efforts 2008-09 would ultimately fail and, indeed, leave Europe and the world worse off…all that matters is getting the economy to limp past November, 2012 without a Great Depression.
This is a Ruling Class in panic…worried that it really is all coming to an end. But here’s Obama’s problem – he’s got to get the Germans to agree to kill their own economy in order to bail out Greece, Spain, etc…and if Germany agrees to do that, then Chancellor Merkel will be crushed at the next German elections. Merkel must politically die so that Obama may politically live…and, if you polled the Ruling Class, that would probably be considered a good outcome. Obama has become the lynch pin of a corrupt, self-serving, global elite…if he goes, the sort of reforms to be enacted in the United States would pave the way for the rest of the world’s people to reform themselves. But, will Merkel do it?
That remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether such actions by Europe can really save the day. I don’t think they can…I think the debt has piled so high and the insolvency has spread to widely in the financial system that nothing can really stop the crash. But, we shall see. But remember what is going on here – the Ruling Class is trying to save itself. Whatever they say, remember what the real goal is: Saving Obama.
Christie Considers Presidential Run
From Newsmax:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision not to enter the 2012 presidential race — and he says he will let top Republican donors know within days about his plans, Newsmax has learned.
During the past few weeks, several leading Republican donors and fundraisers have been urging the popular Republican governor to reconsider his decision not to run and to enter the GOP primary.
These Christie supporters note that significant GOP support has remained on the sidelines of the primary fight. Many leading fundraisers have yet to commit to any current primary contender, including frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney…
In my view, the only person who could stop Christie would be Palin…if he gets in, he’s the Republican nominee for President…and most likely the next President of the United States of America.
Stay tuned.
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